Minstrel Hall - Campaign 6 details

7015: The Dragon's Umbra

DM: Rosuav
Room: 7015
Looking for players.
Normal playing times; 2AM Sundays

This campaign uses the Dungeons and Dragons 3.5th Edition rules. Unless explicitly permitted by the Dungeon Master, races, classes, skills, feats, abilities, etc from supplements are not in use. To the greatest extent practical, all departures from the core rules will be mentioned in this document, and will be rare.

World

Seventy-Fifteen, Kurgstown. The challenge is survival. And loot, of course; have to have loot. But mainly survival. Every day you live is another day's adventure, another day's risk, and another day's funerals, for the ones who didn't make it. You've managed to reach adulthood, which probably puts your own lifespan into the 75th percentile; but now your training really begins, with magical and mundane life-and-death survival techniques. Good luck.

Despite the constant risks, you feel pretty good about your chances in life right now; after all, you got this far, right? You even have a few friends, and friends not only help your survival, they make looting oh! so much more gratifying. That fancy staff? Give it to the wizard. Ooh, full plate armor, only one way to find out if it's cursed or not! Some day, perhaps, you hope not too soon, it'll be time to face the Dragon, and you want to be ready...

Character creation

Your first character starts at level 1. Use "roll stats" once and distribute the scores as you please. Yes, this means you're not as powerful as you might be, and there's going to be some variation in the scores. I know.

When (not if!) your first character dies, you may create a new character with half as many levels, rounded up. So if your character dies at level 7, you start a new one (of the same class or different) and immediately level to 4.

Hit points: Fixed hit points (see 'help fixed hp')
Class: All regular PHB classes are available except for Monk. Prestige classes are at the DM's discretion only; make your case to the DM on the basis of roleplaying and character style.
Feats: The Leadership feat has some restrictions; see below, 'NPCs in the party'.
Skills: I believe the rogue "Sneak Attack" ability is misnamed. It makes little sense that you can "sneak up on" a foe just because there's someone on the opposite side (flanking), etc. The PHB describes it as "... strike a vital spot for extra damage", which does make sense; consequently, in this campaign, the ability is renamed "Vital Strike". This has no gameplay effect.
Additional information: "lookup divine magic" to learn about a free magic item available to all new characters.

Weapons

The following fantasy weapons are disallowed because I think they are ridiculous: orc double axe, two-bladed sword, gnome-hooked hammer, dire flail, and spiked chain.

Monsters and NPCs

Do not rely on anything that you may have read in the Monster Manual, or other core books, about the stats or abilities of monsters or NPCs. I tailor monsters and NPCs to the campaign and storyline. I will alter their stats and abilities without any warning to players.

Character Sheets

Players are trusted to accurately maintain their characters' record sheets. You may use either Google Docs/Drive or the Minstrel Hall + Gypsum inbuilt character sheet; the latter is preferred but you need to use Gypsum to use it.

NPCs in the party

Player characters may take the Leadership feat and thus be entitled to a cohort. Cohorts are welcome party members, but as this facility can be quite powerful and yet slow the game down significantly, it is subject to restrictions.

First and foremost, the cohort is an NPC, and is thus under my (the DM's) command, not the player's. For efficiency's sake I will usually allow micromanagement to be in the player's hands, but any major character decisions (eg multiclassing him) MUST be cleared with me. I'll usually give approval, so long as it's not in violation of...
... the next important point: The cohort must be there for the party, not for the one leader. For instance, an NPC cleric when the party has no healer is in the party's interests; but an NPC wizard whose only purpose is to polymorph his leader into a hydra so he can get sneak attack damage is too focused on the one PC.
There will only be one NPC in the party at any given time. If one of you has his cohort there, nobody else can, and I won't send any other NPC with you. (Exceptions at the DM's discretion only.)
The feat has an additional prerequisite: 300wpm typing speed. Okay, maybe I'll accept a bit less, but if you're going to be running two characters in combat, please make sure you can handle the necessary typing. (That also means: Please don't bring your cohort with you if you're playing from your phone. I apologise for cutting people off for an OOC reason, but it gets quite tedious at times.)

Followers are not subject to these restrictions, but (and because) they are not going to take part in combat. They will do errands, serve as shopkeepers, etc, but will generally not have a major part in the actual sessions.

License

This document is Copyright 2013-2017 Chris Angelico and Neal Brofee, and is released under the terms of CC-BY-SA: feel free to copy this document and adapt it for your own campaign, just be sure to acknowledge prior authors, maintain the copyright notice, and help to keep the internet free! http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

For further information, contact the DM in-game.