templates for fantasy characters

[bloomann]

I'm working on a classic fantasy campaign setting. there are the usual races

men

halfling

dwarves

elves

wizards are considered a race apart (like a small clan of gaurdian angels)

there are no real "classes" for the races, an elf is an elf is an elf...he may be able to perform certain "tricks" but he won't be a mage/fighter/thief.

On the otherhand men have four different classes depending on which city they come from

fighter

ranger

cleric

thief

Now what I need help with is defining special attributes for each race. I have some good ideas then just scanning over a few of these messages have given me even more

for example thieves get 25% damage reduction in close combat or shadows

halflings have ego defense against mind control, illusions (because they're soooo pragmatic) etc...

I hope you all might provide me with a few other interesting "powers" to help me build the basic templates

Am I asking too much????

thanks

[eepjr24]

It would really help if you gave us some "flavor" of your campaign. Are your elves tree-dwellers? Forest dwellers? Roaming plains nomads? In any case, here are some ideas:

 

Dwarves you can usually do the classics, IR vision, Bump of direction (only underground), Detects (weak stone, stone traps, metals, etc). If you like twisting them a bit, make your metal sensing dwarves "sniffers" or somesuch that smell metals by type (analyze and discriminatory smell, only vs metals).

 

For visual illusions on the halflings, consider increased perception rolls (+2-3 to all) only to sense true forms. This could make them good at seeing dopplegangers for what they are, etc.

 

See an earlier post (posted today or yesterday) for some ideas of typical tolkien elf abilities.

[bloomann]

first off thanks for the dwarf ideas, eepjr24, O'm still getting the lands maps together but it looks like this

 

at the center is an island in a huge lake where the race of wizards (the males are "classic wizards the female are enchatresses (?) who more like mentalist) they live in a keep and guard the sacred text of knowledge in a vast library.

 

In the west is a city like Gondor. the men are "Princely Fighters", bright golden towers and all that, these men are incredible strong 20 - 35 str, standing between 6 and 7 feet tall.

 

In the North is a range of mountains where the dwarves dwell

 

in the south is the "enchanted" forest where the elves live. Elves are wood elves in the campaign and lofty, dreamy beings, they only commerce rarely with men, sometimes with halflings but mostly with wizards, never with dwarves although they respect the ancient pacts and alliances binding all the races together

 

Near the forest along the southern river lies the halfling city. In the campaing halfing resemble Tolkiens hobbets, peaceful, humble, pregamatic. They are great scholars in their own rights, and can read magic scrolls. They have great resistance towards mind control, illusions, etc do to their pragmatism.

 

In the east lie a twin city, one is a holy city of clerecs, the other a city of thieves.

 

and dwelling between the cities are a clan of rangers, again very Tolkien in attributes, tracker, hunters, healers, etc...

 

all in all it's very cliché I know, but I wanted to do something that tried to capture the essesnce of the fantasy genre while keeping everything simple and well limited, that way fighting common zombies or orcs might be more interesting.

 

does this help

thanks

[tkdguy]

I think you should come up with an explanation why fighters, cleric, snad thieves have their own cities. Is everyone in the city a thief, or is crime just rampant over there? Here are a few questions you may wish to consider.

 

Let's say all the clerics stay in city X. First of all, are the clerics anything like the D&D clerics, or are they just normal people born to a priestly caste? What would be their function? Why would they stay only in that city, when they can spread their faith among the masses? Also, assuming priests have healing magic, how far would people have to travel in order to save a stricken comrade?

 

As for the thieves in city Y, why do they predominate in that city? Is it a penal colony where convicted criminals are sent? If so, what is there to steal? Also, the law would be either ineffective or nonexistent there. If it is an independent city-state, why would people do business there? If it is part of a king, why doesn't the king send troops (presumably recruited from city Z where the fighters are) to restore order?

 

I'm not trying to dismiss your ideas; I'm just asking you some questions that will hopefully help you make your campaign as rich and unique as possible. I can understand you trying to keep the spirit of the fantasy genre as standard as possible, but you want to avoid a generic campaign with cookie-cutter characters. Both you and your players will soon tire of it otherwise.

[bloomann]

thanks for thoughts and criticism,

I would say that the human cities are cast related. Thus someone born in city Z (fighter city) is a fighter or a farmer, someone born in city Y is a cleric, and someone born in city X is a thief. It's still a little hazy for me too but I think I have something here. We could say that city Z has representatives from the cleric city and theives city. Also I imagined that the cleric / thief city are actually twin cities where all the males are born clerics and shipped over there and all the females are born thieves (we could always switch this around if you want to be PC about it). Also I need to define thief as a positive title. We need to think of thieves in this campaign as "honorable" thieves. They are chaotic, freespirits but they also have codes and are bound by the same alliances which bind the other kingdoms. So who do thieves steal from? Well from the bad guys, mostly wizards and demons who have fallen out of the gaurdian cast.

Oh Oh IU got it!!!

Lets say a in ancient times when the alliances where made between the races and the borders secured, there where ancient artifacts of immense power held in the wizards library of the wizards keep. But the guardians of the keep fell out with one another and over half left, taking or stealing most of the artifacts. Some traveled far in the east where there was only a small town far from the golden spires of the fighter city. There they began all sorts of horrible experiments with the artifacts, raising dead, creating orcs and goblins, summoning powerful demons, etc... things where soon out of control. The wizard guardians who where left called on all the races to purge this small town, and all though they managed to cast out the baddies, creating twin cities to protect the eastern border, the war is still going on. To help regain the artifacts and purge the undead the wizards formed two cast in the twin cities, the cast of clerics and the cast of thieves.

this just came tumbling out just now so I hope it doesn't sound too contrived, I really appreciate the way you guys are helping me to shape this one up.

thanks

[bloomann]

continuing the train of thought:

so the cleric cast would be trained from birth in the art of healing and purging the undead. They learn special spells and have their own special artifact (for now its an anhk (sp?) which protects against the undead. Upon completion of their training, around thirty years of age lets say, they are given their own anhk (blessed and charged with power from the ancient artifact) then told to go stomp some undead butt.

The thieves city is likewise the same, trained from birth to become a thief elite, the thief acolyte will learn various tricks like : disguise, hide, conceal, slieght of hand, but also special fighting techniques, becoming nearly invisible in the dark, special thief gadgets, etc...then at the ripe age of around 25- thirty if they have passed the test they are given a special thieves cloak and a quest to steal some artifact back. Remember the eastern lands beyond the twin cities are filled with the walking dead, cast out wizards etc...most of the time a cleric and a thief will form a couple to go on a quest together. This makes a union, and the basis of familly. Remember these aren't christian, muslum or our kinds of monks. The sacred walks with the profane if you will. Much like what I saw when I was travelling through India.

[AnotherSkip]

Ermmmmm...

 

Okies so thieves and Clerics have been teaming up for millenia...

 

someone somewhere _must_ have gotten lucky enought to be successfull, the odds are too great that _alot_ of the thiefes and clerics especially at sending out most of the population at one time or another someone would have gotten through. Just how many artifacts are there?

 

Hmmm howabout making the "thiefs" mechanical experts too. not only little traps but big traps also, and seige gear, clocks, and other automatia(zombie killing machines!!!!!). now the Thiefs have a reason to stay at home too. The primary thought is protection/defense, after all if you send 100% of your population out on basically suicide missions you are soon going to have little population left..

 

How about a sort of Noblise Oblige/Inheritance law wherein a pesant only needs a few (like 1-5) zombie headsto prove he's a Man/Woman(trial of manhood sort of thing) and it scales up from there wherein in order to prove oneself worthy of being a member of the nobility a person must kill x number of zombies and if you want a total lock accquiring an artifact is _the_ ultimate prize.

 

Thusly it keeps the status quo has mobility and you don't have a high suicide rate of your birth and support members....

[bloomann]

this is great great,

everytime you guys post I get a zillion ideas after. Let's say now that the story and loss of artifacts are not mellinia old but roughly two or three centuries, plummetting this world into choas. The Artifacts are spread out all over the place, in the barren savage orc countries of the far north to the evil pirate (men) kingdoms of the south, east is the land of the undead and the bad wizard cast, to the west is the demon kingdom. Also some of the artifacts have been recovered over time and still others were never stolen in the first place, although from time to time evil forces try to launch all out assaults or crafty subterfudge against the wizard's guardian keep (remember it's on an island at the center of the allied kingdoms). I'm still not sure as for the nature or what the artifacts are, it's slowly bubbling in my mind, you're right though I need to come up with concrete numbers. I was thinking there would be the first generation artifacts, perhaps the ones the first original beings brought with them when they came to this world's plane. Maybe nine, 9...Nine original light beings, nine first gen artifacts. Then the first wizards made other powerful artifacts using only a small bit of power from the originals, and on it went through the centuries...so we have a limited number, say each century the earth could only take the fabrication of 9 magic items, so in nine centuries we have nine 9 genration magic, nine 8 generation magic items and so on until we get to the source which are the big great grand daddies of magic items "the ancient sacred artifacts of immense power!!!!!!!!" (I think having only 81 "real artifacts" as opposed to your run of the mill magic items is probably a good number, but maybe too small.

Lastly I like the thief/mech caste but then what are the dwarves going to be used for.

does this work????

thanks again for input....

[bloomann]

Originally posted by AnotherSkip

 

 

How about a sort of Noblise Oblige/Inheritance law wherein a pesant only needs a few (like 1-5) zombie headsto prove he's a Man/Woman(trial of manhood sort of thing) and it scales up from there wherein in order to prove oneself worthy of being a member of the nobility a person must kill x number of zombies and if you want a total lock accquiring an artifact is _the_ ultimate prize.

 

Thusly it keeps the status quo has mobility and you don't have a high suicide rate of your birth and support members.... [/b]

 

This is the idea that I thought was so good, but I went off on another tangent. Okay, the Cast : Fighter Prince, Cleric, and Thief, don't nessecarily control the city but they are the cities protectors, a Noblise Oblige idea would seem the way to go and ope up a whole ladder to start PCs out with, If the GM wants it to start at peasent level with teenage characters proving their stuff or they can be seasoned champoins who already posses an artifact and wield great power. This is good.

[AnotherSkip]

Hoody Hoo!!!!! I got Quoted Positively!!!!!!

 

Heh, just trying ta help.

 

81 artifacts are cool,

 

make each one you create in advance individual and leave about half undefined.

 

 

hmm okies make the Dwarfs primarily long term/planned seige(Trebuchet, Battering Rams, and Walls, fortess construction) and Thiefs short term/off the cuff (shoring up walls, sapping, dirty tricks assassinations, man traps etc..) seige type.

 

So that when the battle come around you want the Dwarfs to have been there a millenia before but you want the theifs manning the walls

[bloomann]

Re: Hoody Hoo!!!!! I got Quoted Positively!!!!!!

 

Originally posted by AnotherSkip

Heh, just trying ta help.

 

81 artifacts are cool,

 

make each one you create in advance individual and leave about half undefined.

 

 

hmm okies make the Dwarfs primarily long term/planned seige(Trebuchet, Battering Rams, and Walls, fortess construction) and Thiefs short term/off the cuff (shoring up walls, sapping, dirty tricks assassinations, man traps etc..) seige type.

 

sorry anotherskip, but could you tell me what a trebuchet is? (bloomann asking whiling hanging his head in shame for not bieng a good middle ages defense specialist)

[AnotherSkip]

S' Okies, ermmmm

 

allright you know what a catapult is? (throw rocks at walls to break them down)

trebuchets are basically pretty similar to catapults. essentially I was talking about the Dwarves being the masters of big bulky seige equipment. but perhaps as a side note anywhere you feel there is overlap perhaps the Theifs _stole_ the concepts that make them over lap?

[Talon]

A catapult uses torsion, like those propellor planes that work off a wound-up rubber band.

 

A trebuchet uses a counterweight -- the force of the weight dropping at one end lifts the other end fast enough to throw a rock.

 

Check http://www.trebuchet.com/ for more specifics.

[Nightmask]

Some racial toughts

 

Dwarf Racial Powers:

15 Damage Reduction (Physical, 25% Resistant)

15 Damage Reduction (Energy, 25% Resistant)

 

Elf Racial Powers:

6 Life Support: Immune to Aging, Immune to Disease

6 Enhanced Perception: +2 with PER roll

3 Ultrasonic Hearing

5 Ultraviolet Vision

 

 

Hobbit Racial Powers:

10 Mental Defense: 17 DEF, Only vs Mind Control (-1/2)

7 PRE: +10, Only for Defense (-1/2)

3 Talent: Ambidexterity

 

I do not use "classes". Each player chooses skills normally and if skills are usesd together they get a bonus. Also, I use Atomik Magic and additional characteristics for magic, like MAGE and MgD (Magic Defense). Also, note these are Fuzion converted to 4th Ed Hero, you may need to minor adjustments, if so please post 5th Ed costs. Thank you!