Common OOC thread

probably a good plan..... count me in for this adventure :)

i find the point buy system makes for fairer distribution of stats. Some classes (eg wizard, fighter) benefit from min/maxing their relevant stats, while others (eg paladin, monk) benefit more from having more evenly distributed stats. The point buy system allows for both methods while ensuring even stats. 25 is standard, 28 is "tougher" and 32 is "elite" for point buy. If you're not familiar with it, the rules are listed in the DMG, or Redblade has it as a built-in option (and does all the math for you)

yeah, that was the other that i thought about, but wasn't sure of the exact numbers. good call trevor

wow, sounds interesting.

Jerry, can I invade your campaign since david's is dead in the water and you're short 3 players? (no offense david)

I'm in the process of deciding how I want to handle this. I'll have a decision on how we'll proceed by tomorrow morning. At that time I'll also have Fiera-Crystalla and hopefully Aquatrane race revisions done too.

In the meantime, those of you who are currently active, please update your characters according to the new race and class revisions. Roleplaying can continue, but no combat for active players until they send me their revised characters. Some of you don't have race revisions yet - you'll have them late tomorrow morning.

Please, use the following race equivalencies:

Drow = Dracen
Blackscale = Underlost
Centaur = Gaiatauren
Poison Dusk = Duneskaj
Halfling from Miderth = Halfling (Miderthian)

Those of you who are:

Human from Gaia
Human from Fiera-Crystalla
Human from Miderth

should consult me as to which race you'd convert your character to.

Let me know of any revision-related questions. Thanks.

So if I'm a halfling originally from impetus...

you said before that nothing was changing for me correct? If I do have an update just let me know what it is. Thx

does anything besides the name change for me?

Alterith wrote:

So if I'm a halfling originally from impetus...

The current situation would allow you to give a slight revision to your character to say that you originated from Miderth but was raised on Impetus from a very young age.

Quote :

you said before that nothing was changing for me correct?

My apologies, the information PMs I sent everybody are out of date. I thought I mentioned that "almost no stone would be left unturned," but I was wrong.

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If I do have an update just let me know what it is.

Check for updates to be applied to your character via the Miderth race compendium, found here.

RaSa wrote:

does anything besides the name change for me?

Yes, there are quite a few changes. In particular I can think of vulnerability to cold and fire, and acid resistance, and a couple others (immunity now applies not just to sleep but all mind-affecting magic). But I can't remember them all. The changes are all in the Starting Racial Traits, so check that in detail (here).


Necessary Clarification:

Sorry for not clarifying earlier (again, thought I had, but I guess I missed it). Revisions apply to everybody. Check your respective race conpemdium for changes.

Everybody will have revised languages that they will update their character sheets with, because some languages don't exist any longer. Some of the standard D&D langauges take on a whole new context in Novemterra (i.e. "progenitor languages").

Suggestion for Revision - Pseudo-Do-Over

It might save you more time if, instead of looking for changed details (especially if your race has largely remained the same), you "re-make" your character using the new conpemdium - you would keep all of your original equipment, ability score rolls, hit point rolls. This sounds like more work, but again, it might actually be easier than combing through your document looking for minute changes.

Summer Roleplaying Situation

Here is what we will do.

Because of the lull in the game caused by summer unavailability with player/DM schedules, we will have a temporary summer group. This summer group will be determined on a first come, first serve basis by those who indicate their availability by

1. Contacting me with intent to partipcate
2. Updating their character sheets (.doc file and forum profile)

No guarantees if either is lacking. If you wish to participate but cannot immediately respond, notify me as soon as possible with the date you will be available. My group size will be limited to six people (there are currently ten players).

As mentioned yesterday in my OOC post, I was going to provide for you a blank character sheet if you wanted to re-do your character. That is unnecessary - if you wish to use the "do-over" approach to revising your character, simply re-use your current sheet. The "do-over" approach is suggested for players who wish to save time by remaking their characters using the new race/class info so that they will not have to look through the documents trying to detect small changes made to their race/class.

At a minimum, all races have altered languages to suit the new system used in Novemterra, and many class ability names have changed. Most races have undergone more significant contextual and technical changes that you need to be informed of.

so at this point, the only thing i'm still confused about is my race's favored class. it says "dracen, most are wizards or rogue. does that mean that outside dracen, a favored class can be either rogue or wizard? or that they effectively have no favored class since dracen no longer is technically a class once you max it?

Good questions.

RaSa wrote:

so at this point, the only thing i'm still confused about is my race's favored class. it says "dracen, most are wizards or rogue. does that mean that outside dracen, a favored class can be either rogue or wizard?

"Preferred class" is just game world background, a common class that a certain race's members end up pursuing in life. It's not the equivalent of favored class, which has in-game mechanical implications.

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... or that they effectively have no favored class since dracen no longer is technically a class once you max it?

You can think of the Dracen having a level cap of 2nd level much in the same way that a typical adventuring class has a (normal) level cap of 20th level. Once you reach 2nd level in Dracen, it remains a class, but because it is favored, it will never affect how you want to multiclass your character. (This corrects a previous mis-statement that once you progress through the entire monster racial class, your character is fully developed and the racial class no longer counts as a class.)


And now, for some details (for anyone who's curious).

Wizards might have had other things in mind, but I see two key reasons why monstrous racial classes need to have their own race as their favored class: One, it makes logical sense when a class's level progression is used to represent physical/mental growth and development; two, this is a way to use currently-existing rules to justify why new monster racial class level caps (in the Dracen's case, 2nd level) won't interfere with your character's normal development after you've received the level cap.

In essence, though the spirit of what you are saying is correct, the statement itself is technically incorrect, so I just wanted to make sure everyone was on the same page. I'm to blame for the misconception, given that in the beginning of this campaign, I in fact did mention that once you hit the racial class level cap, that race no longer counts as a class.

The reason why can be evidenced by the following:


Scenario 1

Squeal: So, what character are you gonna be playing?
Squeak: Humm... seeing as how we're starting at 10th level, I think I'm gonna go with an 8th level Dracen Fighter.
Squeal: Nice.

Scenario 2

Squeal: So, what character are you gonna be playing?
Squeak: Humm... seeing as how we're starting at 10th level, I think I'm gonna go with an 9th level Dracen Fighter.
Squeal: Nice. Wait a sec... doesn't the Dracen have 2 racial levels? That means you're overpowered!
Squeak: Yeah, but I'm only gonna be a 1st level Dracen.
Squeal: Oh, I see.

As you can see, from the above examples, we have one Dracen 2/Fighter 8, and one Dracen 1/Fighter 9. If the monster racial class no longer counted as a class after you progressed through it all, this distinction couldn't be made.

Just a technicality. But that's how this game survives.

true..... but all of the monster classes had their own preferred class that allowed them to multiclass in that aspect. as the drow males favored class was a wizard, that would have allowed me to take a level or two in wizard while concentrating on my main class. now that that favored class no longer exists, it doesn't make sense for me to multiclass at all outside of ninja and dracen, so it makes my race significantly less versatile than a human (or any other standard race for that matter), who can level up to 10 in fighter, while taking one level in say rogue and one level in wizard to have some extra tricks up his sleeve. this is the very large limitation that you're putting on by removing the favored actual class of a race. I mean, with some races that have 5+ levels, this may not be that big of a deal, but with one like dracen, they merely have 2 levels of dracen, and then the rest of their progression is all class based.

I've gotta agree with Andrew on this one. If I have time, I'll elaborate when I get home.

/concur with andrew

RaSa wrote:

true..... but all of the monster classes had their own preferred class that allowed them to multiclass in that aspect. as the drow males favored class was a wizard, that would have allowed me to take a level or two in wizard while concentrating on my main class. now that that favored class no longer exists, it doesn't make sense for me to multiclass at all outside of ninja and dracen, so it makes my race significantly less versatile than a human (or any other standard race for that matter), who can level up to 10 in fighter, while taking one level in say rogue and one level in wizard to have some extra tricks up his sleeve. this is the very large limitation that you're putting on by removing the favored actual class of a race. I mean, with some races that have 5+ levels, this may not be that big of a deal, but with one like dracen, they merely have 2 levels of dracen, and then the rest of their progression is all class based.

Excellent point. I don't agree with your take the limitations of progression, but let me first say for the record that I agree that it doesn't seem to make sense for (say) the Drow (not the Dracen) to originally have had Wizard as their favored class, and then suddenly have Drow as their favored class just because their level adjustment was converted to a progression. On this reason alone I will consider revising the race files (I knew that updates page would be good for something).

The reason why I don't agree with your take on the limitations that this brings to the progression has nothing to do with right or wrong. If anything, your argument is completely correct, and There's no facts I could bring up that would explicitly state, "oh, you're wrong sir." So let me make that clear. My disagreement only comes from a different interpretation.

The first reason why I think it is reasonable to keep things as they are, is because the XP penalty assessed for multiclassing only happens if a greater than 2-level difference occurs. An example would be a Dracen who wished to multiclass as a Wizard/Fighter. A 10th level Dracen could still do this, by multiclassing Dracen-Fighter-Dracen-Wizard-Fighter-Wizard... and so forth. He could even elect to take both Dracen levels first, without any XP penalty when later he takes the Fighter and Wizard classes.

This "cornering" into the 1-level leeway leads to my next reason, which is that of realisticness. Because D&D is such an abstract game for the sake of simplicity, there's no way to account for characters possibly forgetting class-related skills like they would in real life. For example, in real life, if you don't use a feat for many many years (Perform (Guitar), for example), you get rusty, and don't function at your best. The current rules assumes that characters have no such dimension to themselves, and probably for the better. Therefore, to require characters that multiclass to use the "1-level leeway" to avoid XP penalties for multiclassing represents this very well in my mind: In order to keep himself from getting rusty, the character has to keep his skills in shape.

To me, the XP penalty reflects the rustiness or "unlearning" of skills that occurs over a larger period of time during which the character is not learning (i.e. leveling) in a certain multiclass. It also represents a diversion of focus, and would be the equivalent of taking, say, 21 credits in college, as opposed to 15. You might learn more, but it's just that much more difficult to keep everything in line, and ultimately you end up spending more than the arithmetic double the effort (i.e. 1 adventuring class might require 100% of your effort, but two might require 250%, not 200%). That difference of 50% is where I see the XP penalty coming in, and forces the character to keep his skills current.


One argument against my view above may be that a character's monstrous racial class isn't a real profession - it's just natural growth. However, in that case then one (not me, necessarily) could also counter with the idea that an animal's natural wilderness skills may come naturally, but practice is still required. Young animals, for instance, play-fight to practice hunting and the use of their claws and teeth, and the lethal takedown required to capture their prey.

Still yet another counter to this counter is the question, "well what about natural training periods - i.e. levels - for the Core races and their abilities?" Then one can also counter with the idea that that is why, say, a high elf's starting age is around 110 years - they do not necessarily age slower (as in, this doesn't mean that a 80-year-old elf is still like a baby), but perhaps during that time the elf is applying time to practice his racial abilities.


These are all just fragmented thoughts I'm throwing around, and if any of you read through it all I'd like to hear your thoughts. I would not mind revising favored classes, but I have to admit I am going to prioritize the campaign/adventure at this point, because I've completed most of the work I originally set out to do, and we can make do with what we need by using the "1-level leeway" rule, which if you think about it, still allows you to multiclassing with as many classes as you wish (provided you advance them all at an increment of 1 level).


Keep in mind through all this that Novemterra bloodline classes (equivalent to template classes provided by Wizards) never count toward XP penalties for multiclassing, nor do prestige classes.

I have a few problems with changing the 'favored' classes for the racial-type characters.

1) Monstrous-type creatures are in the Monstrous Manuals because they are simply that, monsters. The reason behind them wanting to advance as their monster-type is because they "don't know any better". If wild cat (IRL) were to be born and age in the wild, it would be considered as advancing in it's racial class of 'wild-cat'. Though, if there were a city of cat people, you would expect them to advance as not only cat, but as whatever job they took. Personally, I advanced as human for my first x number of levels, then took on the class Engineer later on. In your game, it is assumed (and stated in some cases) that these races are of some society. Therefore, it is probably safe to say that these races would be able to learn a class. It is assumed for most classes in the Monstrous Manuals that they are wild creatures without society (I know this is not the case for some such as Drow, Deep Dwarf, and others) but for many, they would advance as their monster type because they have nothing else to advance as.

2) The favored classes for the 'standard' races seem to match with that race. The reason for this is that these races are built for that type of class. An orc is big and strong which is a natural fit for a barbarian. Therefore, because the race naturally fits the class, that class is their favored class -- ie. something they don't have to work as hard at. In the case of monster-type creatures this seems to make sense as well. How is a Drow any different from an Elf? They live underground, sure, but does that really make sense that they would not tend towards a particular class naturally? I say no. Why would an Elf have a favored class, but not a Drow? It doesn't make sense.

Combining the two arguments above (society and natural abilities) it seems that each allowed class should have some favored class. Furthermore, it says in the Savage Species book (pg. 27) that a monster-class counts as a class when determining XP penalties. This would lead one to assume that, unless it is a feral creature, the racial class would be able to have something it would naturally be good at. Hopefully my ramblings make sense. I was thinking about this at work and have since jumbled my arguments, likely making them less coherent. Thoughts?

My only counter to that would be that the monter class could be considered a "natural" progression. A cat that grows becomes a bigger more able cat. Unless it tries very hard, and dedicates itself to a particular class neglecting its natural inclinations, it will progress in its natural state. As you said in your example, you leveled up human for the beginning of your life and later became an engineer. If you had dedicated yourself to becoming an engineer before you became a more able human you would suffer overall and probably end up progressing slower over all. To translate this into D&D, if you alternate lvl progression in a class with lvl progression in a race you progress normally, if you choose to continue in a class before maxing your race you suffer the xp penalty and progress more slowly. The core races don't suffer this penalty because they are fully developed in their race before they even begin progressing in a class. Thats my take anyway.

I think alex put down what i was thinking quite well :)

The other side of that is that it still doesn't make sense that once a race has progressed to its finality that it doesn't have a favored class like the standard races do, unless you consider that because it has more natural abilities that it can't neglect its own natural inclinations and abilities (still for races like the drow with a lvl progression of 2 they don't have that much advantage over say a gnome (with its natural spell-like abilities) and the core classes all do have a favored class that doesn't count against them...so I don't know)

Good points. Good to know we are contemplating what is going on here.

It seems like the Savage Species reference would then indicate that the monstrous racial classes in fact don't receive their own racial classes as favored classes, and instead only keeps their suitable adventuring classes as favored classes. So, say, a Dracen would not have Dracen as its preferred class, but Wizard instead (hypothetically).

It seems logical to me to give the monstrous races two favored classes - one for their own race and one adventuring class. But I am hesitant to do this because of the mechanics. If you guys had to pick, would you say the monstrous races should have adventuring classes as their favored class, or their own racial class?

well i think that preference is clearly up to how somebody runs their character. if someone is playing a dracen and going wizard, they'd want wizard, because if they choose to throw in 1 level of another class just for the extra sneak, hp, etc., it won't effect them at all since dracen would be level 2 and any other class could be 1-3. however, in my situation, if wizard, and only wizard is the favored class, the second i max out dracen and start taking mostly ninja, i'll start getting xp penalties. so that's why i have a problem with having to choose one or the other, because you're forcing me to choose the one i wouldn't otherwise choose given the fact that I would be taking xp penalties every level beyond 5. (ie lvl 2 dracen, lvl 4 ninja; lvl 2 dracen, lvl 5 ninja; etc.)

I don't see the problem in giving monstrous races two favored classes, seeing how the normal D&D system essentially has it set up that way anyway.

i guess what i'm saying is that the monster progression, once completed, no longer counts for XP penalties. up until completion it would count for XP penalties.

examples with the 7 level Underlost progression (assuming fighter favored class):

• lvl 4 fighter, lvl 2 underlost, lvl 1 wizard would not incur any penalties because the two non-favored classes are within 1 lvl of each other
  
  
• lvl 4 fighter, lvl 5 underlost, lvl 1 wizard would incur penalties because the levels in underlost and wizard would be more than 1 apart
  
  
• lvl 4 fighter, lvl 7 underlost, lvl 1 wizard would not incur penalties because the only level that would count when calculating penalties would be the 1 level of wizard. the underlost would no longer count because the progression is maxed, and the fighter would be the favored class and not count in the first place
  
  
• lvl 4 fighter, lvl 7 underlost, lvl 1 wizard, lvl 3 paladin would incur penalties because the levels of paladin and wizard would be more than 1 apart, while the other classes would not factor in to the penalties for reason discussed.

i like what he says :) if you haven't fully developed racially, and yet you are concentrating on way more than one thing (casting, fighting, sneaking, etc.) it would make sense that you might incur penalties. However.... the things that make a human developed physically are basically his/her strength, movement, intelligence, and other skills. everything that a human has to them is innate. The fact that they get an extra feat and more skill points just means that they are naturally skilled more than others. Now take a gnome for example. they can cast dancing lights once per day if i'm not mistaken. Casting dancing lights is just as simple for them as breathing and running is for us. Therefore, once a racial class reaches it's max, every innate ability it has should be just as natural for it, as casting dancing lights for the gnome, or having an extra feat or skills for the human. it's not something that they have to practice, it's just natural talent.