Re: OT: Narf has gone looney and wants to GM.
 

Here's a whole line of reasoning which gets us to what we're facing. I have no idea if that's what Jack thought; it's merely an intelectual excercise.

Right. Now, the campaign started with a ghost and a paladin. The ghosts' strength is fighting anything corpereal, with a minor weakness against things with high Will saves and grapple modifiers. My character is a paladin - Best against evil creatures.

Now, a GM can always make evil NPC's, but it's easier just to use pre-made monsters. Since paladins are champions of spiritual good, the naturally opposed monsters are undead and demons.

Then we picked up a rogue - Ashtons' character. Undead are generally immune to critical hits, so even a low-level undead would still leave 1/3 of the party pretty much innefective. (Which would change if Ashton picks up an anti-evil weapon - Natural attacks can be enchanted). However, the current situation leaves demons as a good moderate challenge to the group.

Then, enter one mage - And one cleric. See where I'm going? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Of course, we probably will face other threats - But this is merely an intellectual example of how to calculate a 'Standard threat type'. It's also not the only possible style of GM'ing - Some GM's perfer a mix of encounters, some of which the party is unprepared for, by nature of class.

The purist Gamist GM, to explain, simply puts threats and plots down, and leaves it completly up to the players to avoid TPK. If the party accidently walks into the dragons' lair while the dragon is there, it's entirely up to them to avoid being toasted.

The Storytelling GM is the other extreme. If the party accidently runs into a dragons' lair at first level, it's because it's plot-related, and they won't get toasted unless they do something like try to steal treasure. And if it's actually not plot related, but an accident of where the party choose to go, it'll be plot related rather quickly.

There's more to it than that; for one thing, most GM's (Me, for example), seem to fall somewhere in the middle. And those aren't the only style of GM'ing.

Re: OT: Narf has gone looney and wants to GM.
 

Shush! Stop giving away the plot before I'm done spinning it yet!

Actually, though, the main reason for Jason's build is a bail-out character; regardless of how bad it gets, he's only perma-gone by DM fiat (Core, it'd take an evil cleric of two levels below twice his ECL to get rid of him for good... and that's likely going to be able to take out the entire party by itself anyway, as it would be level 26 at this point; could also be done with certain save-or-effectively-die Sor/Wiz spells at just a little over the level the party is currently at). At present, he's past his peak level range - about the only ability he has that couldn't be duplicated by a fairly straightforward Sorceror 14 build with an eye towards those abilities would be the Rejuvination, and such a sorceror would have many spells at his disposal (with a higher caster level, and higher level spells) than Jason has available, as well as better saves all around.

Of course, if I accidentally TPK the party, Jason will come back on his own, and perhaps be able to rectify the situation to a degree.

Re: OT: Narf has gone looney and wants to GM.
 

Yay roleplaying tomorrow. Anyway, any chance I could try DMing a campaign? Don't have one yet, but suggestions would be nice, for when we do finish this campaign.

Re: OT: Narf has gone looney and wants to GM.
 

Re: OT: Narf has gone looney and wants to GM.
 

My biggest suggestion would be figure out what you want to run:

What power level do you prefer playing? Minimum, low, mid, mid-high, high, or epic?
(Translates to character levels: Starting Level (start at 1), Low-level (2-5), Mid level (6-10), Mid-high (10-15), high (16-20), or Epic (21+))
Do you like variant rules (e.g., Unearthed Arcana stuff - Gestalt characters, variant classes, generic classes, et cetera)
Do you like bizzare player races (e.g., Ghosts, Half-Celestials, Half-Dragons, Half-Fiends, et cetera)?
Do you like lots of wealth (high or low magic, basically)?
Do you want to play the good guy or the bad guy (As the DM, you play the villian - if you want to be the good guy, run an Evil campaign; bad guy, run a Good campaign)
How much complexity do you like? (also influences starting level - it's much more complex to create a 15th level character or monster than a 5th level character or monster)
How confident are you in your ability to track things? There's usually much less to track for a CR 1-5 critter than there is for a CR 15-20 critter.

Answer such questions as the above, and then figure out your campaign. The DM must enjoy the game as well, otherwise, what's the point?

Edit:
As an example, the currently ECL 14 campaing I'm running started at ECL 11... because I wanted to try out a character concept (Jason). If you have a character concept you would like to examine, a villian of a campaign or a support/bailout character with the party can accomplish it when you are the GM.

After this campaing, I'm considering a 10th-12th gestalt scenario where we try to take down the Terrasque; Cheese strongly encouraged; one sample cheese build: Wiz/Half-Elf Paragon 3, Wiz/Human Paragon 3, Wiz/Fighter 1, Wiz/Loremaster 3; casts as a Wiz 16. One more gestalt level, and he could cast as a Wiz/18 (could also be done with Sorceror, equally easily; could also drop a Half-Elf paragon level, swap for a Paladin level, swish the Fighter level around to be contingent to the swapped level and swap it for Paladin - with two Paladin levels, gain Cha to saves).

Re: OT: Narf has gone looney and wants to GM.
 

Or a psiblade/pyrokinesis. Ooo, flaming mind blades. Probally level 1, with quick level advancment. Variant, maybe, if it's balanced enough. Weird player races, sure why not, just expect to get odd glances. Lots of wealth, maybe average. I want my PCs to be good : ) And for complexity, I'm a subscriber of the KISS method, but a little complexity in the plot can't hurt.

Re: OT: Narf has gone looney and wants to GM.
 

All right, you've got your basic campaign level.

Now, roll 3d10, and consult the following lists:

1:Damsel
2:Prince
3:Pauper
4:King
5:Princess
6:Quenn
7:Baroness
8:Dragon
9:Druid
10:Wizard

1:Kills
2:Eats
3:Kidnaps
4:Rescues
5:Inconvinences
6:Subverts
7:Controls
8:Replaces
9:Unleashes
10:Marries

1:Damsel
2:Prince
3:Pauper
4:King
5:Princess
6:Quenn
7:Baroness
8:Dragon
9:Druid
10:Wizard

Then make a plot out of the three selected words (or fill in your own list; that works too); these are seeds; for example:
2,9,9:

Prince Unleashes Druid

Then spin a situation off it:

Let's see... how could a prince unleash a druid? Perhaps...

Local Prince of the realm decides he wants to boost the farmland under his control, so he can support a larger army to either conquer his neighbors or keep from being conquered himself. To do this, he cuts/burns down an ancient forest bordering the lands he controls.

This forest "just happened" to be held sacred by some powerful (read: 1 to 3 levels above the party) Druid or other who takes offense, and takes revenge (packs of wolves attacking the villagers trying to plant crops, locust swarms eating established crops, that kind of thing; doesn't matter that the Druid doesn't have the right spells on his list to cause it directly - perhaps he trains wild wolves to attack, rather than summoning them (although he may do that, too), breeds the locusts by planting the right kind of plants and carefully placing grasshoppers in them at strategic locations, et cetera - DM artistic license, here).

The Prince, seeing his country getting severely hurt, calls out for help.

This is where the party comes in, to react as they may. Of course, at first, they only hear the prince's side (he's the one that called them... but you could reverse that) that something is eating away at the locals (wolf packs, locust swarms, that kind of thing) with no particular reason as to why now. If they dig, well and good; if they unthinkingly run and slay, well and good; can run with it either way, really.

Simple example, but you get the idea; if you take the time to make longer lists, you can use larger die - d12's, d20's, even d100's

Note that this is just a simple technique for a creative aid - it's for when you are running a little short of ideas - and that if you have a plot you want, go for it.

Re: OT: Narf has gone looney and wants to GM.
 

There's a good chance I won't be able to make tommorrows'.

Re: OT: Narf has gone looney and wants to GM.
 

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/eek.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/eek.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/eek.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

You can get some really wierd combinations if you just roll the dice and take whatever comes up with those lists.

As an aside, I'd kind of like to keep going with my existing character. It's much more fun IMO to keep developing the same character for a long period of time than to frequently start over with new characters.

Re: OT: Narf has gone looney and wants to GM.
 

They are seeds, nothing more; the fun comes when you then spin that into a plot:

Damsel A stubles on a book that lists a ritual to gain immortality (actually, vampirism....) and, not caring about others, decides to try it; what's the life of one random virgin (Damsel B) compared to an eternity of youthful beauty and power?

It is, of course, up to the party to intervene before she completes her nefarious plans (assuming a good party; for an evil party, they need to find, capture, and deliver the appropriet girl....)

Some other fun ones:
Prince
Replaces
Princess

Dragon
Marries
King

Narf: Well, I've missed my share of sessions too. I suppose Derrel can be called off for a day of prayer or some such.