New Item: Death Breaker Sword and Mace

These items are relics of the Unhallowed Wars, each made of well cared for steel covered with runes of preservation and warding. They are usually found on the form of a short sword or mace although other light one handed weapons are possible.

They are +1 undead bane ghost touch weapon with the unique ability to absorb a flask of holy water (and only holy water) poured in the hilt. Any target struck by the weapon takes the effect of the holy water though there is no splash effect or extra damage on a critical hit.

The cost of these weapons is 20,000 plus that of a master work weapon...

It is rumored that there are also "fouled" versions of these weapons in the form of a wicked curved sword that are +1 keen unholy burst and can take a flask of unholy water as above.

These would also cost about 20,000 if anyone was depraved enough to want one.

Campaign Ideas Day Three

A few that are not "D&D" in any form.

Kester Dawn:
Invasion of the Samurai Lizard Chicken People and their Beast Mechs. Fighting them, Earthforce, The various national armies (circa 2020) and a few experimental Human Mechs. And no its not silly....

I never did figure out what system to use for this. Canny players might have noticed the Kester were later influenced by the Guubaruu from David Brins's Uplift novels as well. Given that I was almost certainly never going to run this I put way too much work into it, naming all the Kester Mechs, having bits of language all that. I just had too much time on my hands...


S.O.L -- Soldiers of Lucifer. This is Gnostic reality with Lucifer as a good guy. Think the irreverence of Dogma, l mixed with Gnostism and a hint of the 9th Gate style camp, oh and don't forget the Rock and Roll. Can you help Lucifer protect individuality and free will or will mankind be "redemmed" like a bottle deposit

This was never seriously considered as I have only two players who could deal with the background. The others are far too religious I think. I also had no idea what system to use...

Slipwalkers:
You have a myriad of Universes to choose from. With you Slip Walking talent you can traverse any of them with one two little flaws, there are OTHERS out there and you don't know how to control the Slip. This is based of Sliders and GURPS Alternate Earth

This would be easy to run with the right group but as always thats the rub...

Campaign Ideas Day Two

Hey its technically Day Two, if a bit early

Like the others yesterday, these games are all designed for Midrea.


Midrea Unglued -- D&D played for laughs. Hanz and Franz, Talking Squirrels, Flumph Paladins and more goofiness played with the rules as written (well mostly). This was run a a very extended one shot that turned into a campaign under the 2e rules back in 1999. It was some of the most fun I have ever had playing D&D in any form.

Younger Sons:
One hundred years ago a magical cataclysm killed every human in Amachia. Now the curse has ended and the rush has began. The party are all younger sons of Amachian expatriates with little prospects sent back to the motherland to make their way.

Children of Damnation: The party members are all children of Azgoth, Demon Prince of Defilement. You may be half a fiend but you have free will, what will you do with your gifts now that Father has taken an interest in you. This game was slated originally to be run with Rolemaster Standard System but that never panned out. The current version would be standard 3x with Tiefling race free (they'd get full build points) as the mandated race.

Its been decided: No prestige classes

The reason for this is really simple.Prestige classes add a lot of complexity and prep work but not a lot of fun.

What they do add can be handled better with variant classes and feat chains.

Level Based Defense Bonus in Old School?

A question for reader base.

If I was using Swords and Wizardry or Labyrinth Lord as the basis but I wanted to reduce magic items quite a bit, how much if any general bonus should I gave to AC at higher levels?

It seems to me that AC should go up a bit with combat skill and not just with magic gear so that a 10th level fighter is a bit harder to hit than a 1st level one.

My options to accomplish this seem to be some variations of....

Cyclopedia/Dark Dungeons Weapon Mastery

A slight modification of "Armor for All" at Retro-Roleplaying

Some kind of "parry rule" where I can take away from my chance to hit to take away from yours, possibly at a ratio ala Rolemaster or 3x's Combat Expertise feat . This would work better with raising AC but thats not an issue for me.

A flat class based bonus or maybe something else .....

What say you all?

Campaign Ideas Day One

All these games are Midrea based.

#1 Man Mech and Magic:
A Clockpunk Vision of Escaflowne mixed in with standard gamer fantasy environment. As it happens I ran one session of this with GURPS rules that didn't click and so next time I'll use 3X which should be a better fit.


#2 Cannon Dreams:
The Age of Pyrates Version of the above. What could be cooler, cavalry, cannons, sailing ships and fantasy mechs. Originally I wanted to run this with Savage Worlds "Rune Stryders" and "50 Fathoms" but Savage Rune Stryders was canceled its back to 3x

#3 Path of Blades:
The kingdoms war has been good for mercenaries like you . So come to Fourgate, spend some gold between jobs. help out your buddies,solve mysteries and raise some hell. Its a Merc's life.

Three Campaign Ideas a Day

Something to tide my readers over while I work on some actual content.

These blurbs are from my copious campaign idea notes. They aren't well fleshed out but they give a basic "elevator pitch" for various sorts of games.

Note that many of these are not for any for D&D and are meant to be played with GURPS or Angel or something else.

As always feel free to chime in with your thoughts and suggestions