Neat epilogue Galadel. I'll have t come up with something good.

Good to hear the game went well Rath; I like the look of the 5th edition rules though I've only played a little online. I also have a soft spot for the Forgotten Realms thanks to Baulder's Gate - love that game.

Actually the setting I'd like to give a go is Al-Qadim, which I owned the rules to for years but never played. An Arabian Nights style AD&D game could be a lot of fun and I really love the idea of the Shai'rs (genie based magic users) though I'm not sure how'd they'd handle in game terms (in 5th edition rules they'd probably fit the Warlock class best.)

I loved Baldur's Gate, too. I can't pin down what it is about the setting that rubs me the wrong way.

I think I still have the al-Quadim 2e book in a box somewhere. Never played it. It sounds great, but I imagine it's difficult to implement well.

Dark Sun always caught my eye, though I know very little about it. there is an awesome book called City of Bones by Martha Wells that I loved which I always felt might be a good fit into that world...

Another fan of the original Baldur's Gate game here!

I played a couple of Dark Sun sessions when it first came out (early 90s?) and remember thinking the setting seemed pretty cool, but didn't really get to see much of it.

I haven't played many exotic settings. The closest was a one-day session of Oriental Adventures, which was a blast. The one where you ride ships thru the various planes sounded interesting, but would be difficult to DM well I imagine. I played around a bit with Ravenloft, which was a great module, but I felt TSR dropped the ball on the implementation of it as a setting.

In reply to Ben Scristos (msg # 1014):

Probably the most exotic I played was Eberron, 3rd edition D&D pulp noir setting that has an interesting take on magic as technology. Low level magic is basically common-place and used to make life easier.

Great setting and one of my favorite face-to-face campaigns over the years.

Not really familiar with that one. Does it have a steampunk feel, or further back even then that? There were a few books I read about a detective who worked for Elizabeth the first in a fascinating low magic world, though there were powerful magics about which were often the focus of the good guys who tried to control it.

The way magic worked in that world was fascinating.

It has some steampunk elements, but I wouldn't say that was it sole defining feature. Highlights of the setting:

The world has just emerged from a cataclysmic war, the root cause of which is not really understood, except there was a huge magical explosion in one of the country's and it left behind all kinds of weirdness, e.g., entire cities turned to molten glass, strange aberrations, etc.

Dragonmarked Houses (basically imagine a sort of mafia type organizations) control various niches of trade. The scions of these house sport magical tatoos that grant them special powers associated with their spheres of influence.

Magic suffuses society. In the last war, powerful nations built armies of golem-like, semi-sentient creatures named Warforged to augment their forces. Some of these are still around, but no longer under employ of their masters. A lightning rail (elemental powered train) connects the major cities of the world, enabling rapid travel. Magic is used to boost crops, clean clothes, light cities, power elevators, etc. in the largest cities.

Sounds pretty cool. I played in a game with a warforged once, didn't know what he really was, other than ridiculously tough. I felt he unbalanced the party, but that's what some people want from their characters I guess.

I think a GM would need to decide at the outset what direction they want to go; is it regular AD&D with a few 'Arabian' trappings trappings, something a bit more like Hollywood Arabia or something that tries to go for historical accuracy. You can mix a bit of course but it really depends on where you want to go.

One mistake I think the setting made was to make the main city in the setting (Huzuz) quite so perfect. Here is a sample quote from the Huzuz sourcebook City of Delights on running a 'Law and Crime campaign':



Now I know that a thieves guild campaign is not something everyone would like but that is a fairly disprirting sentence for a prospective GM to read, especially since it makes a 'city watch' type campaign equally unappetising. Likewise the city government is good and wise which makes a political campaign difficult and so on... I'm certainly not against Lawful Good cities but honestly I don't think they make a good place for adventurers.

(In fairness the Al-Qadim setting does have far more interesting cities but still Huzuz is meant to be the centre and is the one with its own box set.)

Oriental Adventures (which I'd love to try at some point) is a bit similar in trying to decide direction. I actually have the Complete Ninja's Handbook for 2nd edition which is kind of underated and has a lot of advice on running ninja characters (and also an alternate 'spy' campaign idea for games set in more tradtional D&D settings.)

I don't think Warforged were unbalanced in and of themselves, but one of the hallmarks of 3rd edition D&D was/is that it lends itself to building powerful characters, for those so inclined.

I like 3rd edition D&D and think it's a good game...when everyone is on the same page as far as the point of the game is not to build machines of death.

Ben, I know what you mean about powerful characters.  Frankly, I think Storm keeping the magic  very low is a brilliant idea for this environment.  I had decided to retire Gal if we lived past the Naga because even without magic items, his magic seemed out of place.  High level 1st edition MU's were always too powerful, but in a setting where other classes had lots of magic items, it could balance a bit better.  But all those spells and items are complicated enough face to face, trying to compute all that detail in just a few posts, yikes.

I suppose that's one advantage to an Illusionist like Saliq in that the single most useful spell is only third level - Spectral Force, which allows for pretty convincing illusions with sound, heat, etc. While the Illusionist obviously has to come up with a good illusion he or she has a fairly small number of spell mechanics to remember.

I'm currently running a game that was all fighters and one cleric until recently when I let a bard into the mix. It's different, but I like it...

That's actually one of the reasons I prefer low-mid level games (Levels 1-5). D&D games become much more difficult to manage once 3rd and 4th level spells come into play.

As far as magic items go, I have always been somewhat conservative when it comes to introducing these to games. On one hand I know they are necessary to take on certain enemies, on the other I try to minimize the inevitable arms race that occurs once characters become decked out with magic items. My general rule is to try to make it so consumables are generally available early on, most characters earn at least one permanent magic item useful to their class by level 3, and maybe one permanent item for every level or so thereafter. Since most of my games generally wrap up around level 5-7, that means characters will have about 3 permanent items and a handful of potions or scrolls to work with.

This approach can sometimes be jarring to players accustomed to having a lot of magic items, but in the end it works out because I have a pretty good eye for designing challenging encounters that do not require magic items as a precondition to survival.

I'm thinking of quitting a game right now where magic items have been made available at pretty much a Monty Haul level, for those old enough to get the reference.

That is the game where Saliq's 'cousin' Slivermoon ended up.

I have a game right now where the party is first level, but sleep spells have devastated the last few groups of monsters I sent at them. Sigh... back to the old drawing board.

Saliq was the first illusionist I ever DM'd for and I will say it was a very challenging class to allow to be useful, while still having limits on how useful it would be. In hindsight, I don't know that I always balanced that very well during this game. I definitely tried to give the character opportunities to shine, but I know there were stretches where the character kind of struggled to effectively contribute. One way I probably could have helped is if I deliberately included more scrolls in randomly generated loot bundles.

All the treasure for this game was determined purely by chance (it's how Rath ended up with a magic trident, which was not his preferred weapon), and illusionist scrolls just never showed up when I rolled up treasure.

I've quite games for the same reasons. In fact, there is a face-to-face D&D group here that keeps sending me invites to their games, but having played with them a few times and seen how they like to play, I keep declining their invites.

I don't like having magic items define how useful my character will be and when the game becomes about acquiring bigger and better magic items in order to kill bigger and badder monsters, my interest tends to wane.

To a certain degree that's why  I don't like the later versions of D&D. The last chance I had for a FtF game was with friends who played 3.5 and the Pathfinder.

There is something about 'building' a character that rubs me the wrong way. The pride when they found a combination of classes and skills and feats that they felt 'broke the game' was simply not a part of the D&D I grew up with.

I want my character to be awesome because of the way I play him, but because I assembled the best collection of pieces. That was what turned me off from the Magic card game. The person who 'assembled' the best deck had a huge advantage. I prefer games where my skill in playing is the measure, not my skill in twisting the rules or the size of my pocket book in the case of magic.

Anyway, a little disappointed in the lack of momentum moving forward, so I'd like to ask one more time...

(1) Does the party want to find a GM more comfortable with higher level characters and continue?

(2) Does the party want to stick  together, roll up new characters, and find a new adventure, either with this GM is willing,or with another>

If it were up to me, I would vote for #2 with this GM.  Of course, this depends completely on Storm's willingness.  But for me, this option combines the best of all possible worlds.

2, 1, or both, or something completely different.

I'll play any game Storm wants to run, but I think he said he wants a break. I'm pessimistic about finding a DM to take over this game successfully. I think I'd rather let Rath end here, much as I love the character.

I'd vote for continuing as ourselves but I agree it will be difficult finding a new GM to take on a highish level group. So 1 but 2 if is not available.

(Also Storm can you create a new OOC thread? I suspect we have more discussing to do and this is over the word limit.)

If there was a consensus I will put in an add for a new DM, but Rath seems to be happy with ending it here. I agree it would be hard to find someone to do the story justice, but I would be willing to try.