Discussion:New to D&D, looking for advice on DM'ing and campaign building

Not sure how to go about integrating rules/setting

Wedge 08:42, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

Hi, as I said, I'm new to the game so I'm seeking some advice from those more experienced than I. I already have had a couple of years of experience with text roleplaying in a forum/chat format, now I'm looking for a little change of pace to keep things exciting, so I wanted to try my hand at running a campaign with d20 rules. Since I'm new at all this I'm trying to start off fairly easily by DMing a short and simple survival campaign with a couple of my roleplaying buddies, but another friend of mine pointed me to this site and all the homebrew content.

Since I was planning on basing the bulk of my campaign off of a setting that I've had in development over the course of years, it's helpful to see some of the other homebrew content to help aid my process, but now is where I've started wondering about some specifics.

The campaign is going to take place on a couple of planets, in a different solar system (possibly a small galaxy later on, when I can flesh it out more) and it involves a civilization around Progress levels 6 or 7, so I know I'm going to have to be using the d20 modern rules for firearms and vehicles or come up with my own, but as a matter of personal preference, I don't much care for the class structure or action points system in the modern rules. What I'm looking for is some advice on how to somehow integrate the rules for modern-style combat with the classic class structure.

The setting and environments have been in development for a couple of years so they're already fairly elaborately designed; consequentially I was already planning on developing a few homebrew classes for use and I'm already in the process of converting one of the races into a d&d-friendly format. One of the main conundrums I was facing was that I wasn't sure whether it would go under the d20 modern or classic d&d if I were to post my content, since the setting is definitely modern but my classes are closer to the classic format, and I don't want to do anything to mangle the way the site works.

I'm aware that this may be a little overly ambitious for a first-timer, but I always tend to just throw myself into these sorts of things the moment I get an idea in my head anyway, so any help or advice you can give is welcomed and very much appreciated, thank you.

JazzMan 16:16, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

The "where to post content" is currently a bone of contention that hasn't yet been solved. See here. Currently the rule is, if it's modern it needs to be formatted to be usable in d20 Modern. I'm trying to change it, because of cases like yours, where you want to use D&D rules in a modern setting.

As for how easy it is to run a space-aged campaign using D&D rules... meh. It depends on how much work you put in, I guess. It sounds to me like you have already created custom classes and whatnot, so I don't see why you shouldn't just be able to tack on the weapons rules and starship rules. You will have to keep in mind that Modern changed some things in order to keep guns from killing off all your characters; for example there are almost no classes with full BAB (and those that do are melee-based), and every class gets an AC bonus. Then again, it might not be a problem at all in your campaign, depending on how you are running it.

The only other problem I can think you might have is costs of items. If you give everything a static price, like in D&D, you might be faced with a clever player who asks you why he can't just buy a starship on his credit card, thus destroying any sort of wealth-by-level guidelines you are trying to stick to.

Wedge 16:56, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, I'll definitely have to factor the stuff about BAB and AC into the way the firearms work, though I think I can finagle a way to make it work with the technology. As for the item costs, that might be a little harder, though I can't see it being much of an issue in this first test run, since the PCs are stranded in the jungle with a very specific set of equipment, and the only real way they'll be able to get more is by finding/making it out of surrounding materials or taking it from the enemy NPCs. In the future though, it's definitely something I'll have to consider.

I've got a more specific question now, which is about the rules on how to handle moderately intelligent animals/creatures as mounts and companions, say with an INT score of about 5 or more. For example, one class has a specific relationship with riding and training Wyverns. What would be the normal implications and limitations for training/teaching tricks to such a creature? Would it necessarily even need to be taught certain things, due to its intelligence score, and if so, how many things could it be taught? I've read over the Handle Animal skill repeatedly and while I've found DCs for Epic checks involving non-animal creatures, I can't find anything on a limit to training for creatures with INT higher than 2 and such.

JazzMan 18:50, 22 April 2010 (UTC)

You might want to check out d20 Apocalypse for some guidelines of running a "stranded in the jungle" type game. I've never run one myself, but I'm playing in a couple now. If nothing else, it will give you some ideas for a barter system once they get back into civilization. And I can say from experience that being able to control what equipment they get will help you a LOT. Just don't give in to their puppy dog eyes; a rocker launcher wielded by a first level character is still 90% as dangerous as a rocket launcher wielded by a 10th level character!

As far as I know, Modern doesn't deal with training animals of higher intelligence. The only class I can think of off the top of my head that deals with animals at all is Wildlord, which treats the animal companion very similarly to that of a ranger or druid. Technically with D&D rules anything with a 3+ Int score is no longer treated as animal intelligence, and doesn't need to be taught tricks (maybe it can't be taught tricks? I'm not sure). It probably wouldn't be game breaking to have the wyvern just do whatever the owner tells it to (within reason). Or you could use a rule of thumb of three tricks per point of intelligence. I can't see it being too overpowered either way, when other people will be wielding machine guns.

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