>>13573887

The setting is meant to be "portable" or somewhat self-contained. It's just material on one region, and island chain in the middle of an ocean, and the various foreign powers that have a presence there, and the fracturing underwater empire. So, all the standard races exist, but now they can be pirates and have guns. I decided that Kenkus, half-breeds, and Halflings would have a little more focus than other core races, because I happen to like them.

But there are 4 new race options I want to throw in. A voodoo-zombie race to be the big tough guys, PC Selkie race to be the talkers and cheesecake, and Abe-sapien race to be the slippery, exploited badasses, and Septuagint to be the Proud Warrior Race guys.

rolled 3, 2, 4, 1 = 10

Refluff mermaids.

Have them be sour hags of the sea, ranging from pirate victims forced to walk the plank to longing damsels waiting for their loved ones to return. Have them prey on sailors and the coastline.

Guns would be weird to integrate I think. If it was 3.5 you could just say 'I point and shoot'. With 4e its 'I aim and I use twin shot - 2 bullets!'

I was thinking about firearms in d&d today, a player wants to give them a try. I'm looking forward to any opinions.

>>13573990
Actually, I decided that mermaids would be non-PC badguys.

They can't go on land, you see, so they make bad PCs from the get-go. Instead, the aquatic PC races are all amphibious to one degree or another, and are on land to escape merfolk tyranny. They have a big empire, and pretty much oppress the other aquatic races. They make heavy use of mind-control magic, secret police, that sort of thing. Merfolk will be aristocratic douchebags that fuck with peoples heads for shits and giggles. They also use poison a lot. Their empire is fracturing due to massive aristocratic infighting, and the other aquatic races are either jumping ship or readying to attack while they're weak. Civil war, imminent sahuagin invasion, that sort of thing. And the surface dwellers are getting roped into the political dickery.

I like the sound of the voodoo zombie race. Would they gain independence like the Warforged did?

But anyways, race stats. First race is pretty much Abe Sapien. Tenative name Agyrosa.

+2 dex, +2 int or wis
+2 insight, +2 perception
Low-light vision
Speed 6, swim 6
Water Dependency: Agyrosa must spend at least 4 hours submerged in water before gaining the benefits of an extended rest. This time need not be consecutive, and may be part of the extended rest.
Resist Cold 5. Increase to 10 at 11th level, 15 at 21st level
+3 on saves vs immobilized, slowed, or grabbed.

Encounter power: benthic insight.
minor action
pick a creature within 30 ft that you can see. you know which of that creature's defenses is the lowest (if two or more of it's defenses are tied, you still only know one of them)

These guys are deep-dwellers, very quiet, intelligent. Big on psionics and magic, they've been used by the merfolk as captive scholars and assassins. They might also have a connection to the Demon lord Dagon (who will be a BBEG in the setting). Those that escaped the merfolk round-up fled deeper into the ocean, met dagon, and now they're doing his bidding. Or something.

Everything is very rough at this point.

>>13574085
Yeah, but there arent enough aquatic races in 4E, so I had to come up with some. and I didnt want to use aquatic elves. because elves are stupid, aquatic elves more so. Ideally, there would be more focus on the different human nations, the kenku salvagers, the halfling merchant sailors, and the aquatic dudes.

It's a pirates-of-the-carribian setting, there HAVE to be guns.

okay fine, maybe It can do without guns. for balance issues, I was thinking that guns would have higher base damage, but be slow to re-load (I was thinking percussion caps or crack-open loading, so re-loading would only take a standard action).

>>13574170
I'd like it to be all-3-tiers. I can think of threats for all levels. run-of-the-mill pirates and hostile natives for heroic, crazy islands, ghost pirates and the East India Tea company equivalent for paragon, Dagon, super-ghost-pirates and Bermuda-triangle aliens for epic.

rolled 4, 6, 1, 2 = 13

>>13574128

>+3 on saves vs immobilized, slowed, or grabbed.

Maybe...maybe not. A plus 3 save coupled with a items and feats makes the character practically immune to immobilize and slow, and a character who twinks out with courageous example gives other players a huge bonus to saves when they pass.

If it was me, I'd take it out. They already get skill bonuses and a resist to cold that increases and a fairly decent encounter power.

>>13574226
Create a bloodline feat. "Aquatic". You take at first level (or when the DM says it's appropriate for it to manifest), it grants you the Aquatic subtype, ability to breathe water, swim speed equal to speed, and some other ability. Take a look at the Elan and Foulspawn heritage feats in Psionic Power for more ideas.

Problem solved!

>>13574302
He also wanted it to be extremely expensive to own one. Kinda like a prestige thing.

>>13574226
>>13574302
I as trying to implement firearms in a 4e setting a while back. My original idea was based on crossbows, with higher damage but little to no proficiency bonus to hit (because early firearms tended to be inaccurate). Firearms also counted as crossbow weapons for use with powers, but not for anything else.

>>13574051
I recently read Mogworld, and I always liked the Zombie characters from Discworld, like Reg Shoe or Windle Poons. And yeah, they have a slight Warforged vibe. The idea is that they're servants created by a west-africa-esque empire that's the big competitor to the East India Company-equivalent, one that's big into magic and necromancy in particular.

I can't come up with good stats for them, though.

Voodoo Zombie (tenative name: Kutemai)
+2 con, +2 str or int
+2 bluff, +2 endurance,
speed 5, normal vision
Necrotic physiology: does not breathe, eat, or sleep. Only need 4 hours of inactivity to gain benefit of an extended rest. instead of rolling death saves, they always take 11.
Vulnerable 5 radiant
Add cha to HP/level, this bonus HP does not affect their healing surge value.

And...that's all I have so far. they need a better concept. I dont actually like the idea of them having healing surges. I wonder if there's a way to radically alter the way their healing surges and HP work, to kind of evoke 3.5 undead rules.

rolled 3, 4, 2, 6 = 15

>>13574353

I think you're thinking of the foamgather heritage feat, although it doesn't let you breath water, it lets you basically act like a dolphin.

>>13574321

A good way to introduce the planar part is have worldfalls that link to the fey wild. If you think storms are bad at sea, wait till you experience a fey storm!

rolled 3, 1, 6, 5 = 15

>>13574387

Why not just refluff revenants?

>>13573887
4th gun rules but for proper gun rule ultramondern4 is coming out soon its also been made by the same guys

>>13574422
Yes, do this. Your other attempt is ridiculous. Also, having a speed of 5 sucks if you're not a dwarf, because if you put on heavy armor it gets worse.

Why do they have +2 to Bluff? How does that work?

>>13574409
>worldfall

I'm suddenly imagining something like Golden Sun, where the world is disc-like and the oceans simply form huge-ass waterfalls at the edge. Sailing off of one spits you out in the Astral Sea.

If this is what you mean, you are a gentleman and a scholar.

If not, you might still be a gentleman and a scholar, but I'm much less interested.

I know that Epic and Paragon are assumed to move to other planes. I just dont see why this should always be the case. But there's plenty of planar stuff to do.

the underwater feywild mind be interesting. Imagine a feywild coral reef. that would be cool.

I'll be honest, I just got off of a dead-end attempt at a Darkest-Africa/Land-of-the-Lost/Primeval setting that was all about ecologies. all my friends thought it was stupid; no one but me likes dinosaurs, walking plants, and terrestial squid, so I'm a little burned out on ecologies.

But yeah, I can imagine some "crazy islands" with weird creatures, and some really cool aquatic monsters that would be big threats way into paragon. There could also be bermuda-triangle-esque extraplanar shite. and lets not forget Dagon.

>>13574453
Yeah it was ridiculous.

They have +2 bluff because they're dead. no autonomic processes means no tells. their eyes dont twitch unless they tell them to.

Okay, it's a stretch, and not very in the theme of 4E. I can think of something better than that.

There is an island with a crazy sorcerer on it. He has made all of fauna huge. Why? The fuckers crazy. No real reason. He just thought it was a good idea.

>>13574506
Yeah, intimidate would be best. The voodoo zombies need more work.

Here's the selkies. Props to the drawfag that threw something together so quick.

Selkies were likely originally native to the Feywild, but have since emmigrated to the mundane world. They tend to be migratory, traveling throughout the year between several clan holdings. In human form, they usually resemble hale, well-padded humans with grey hair and black eyes, and can switch at-will between seal and human shapes. I'd like to work in some sort of folkloric method to trap them in one form but can't think of a good one.

They're used by the Merfolk as ambassadors and agents, since they're very comfortable on land. you never know when a selkie might be a merfolk shill ready to sell you out to it's masters.

+2 con. +2 cha or wis
+2 diplomacy, +2 acrobatics
vision: normal.
speed: 6.
Gregarious: selkies have a +3 bonus on all Aid Another actions.
Hale: add your con modifier to your healing surge value
Seal Form: this ability functions like the druid's wild shape ability, with the following changes. While in seal form, your speed becomes 2, but you gain a swim speed of 7. You also gain a bite attack (+2 prof, 1d6, 2-handed, brutal). You may safely hold your breath for a number of minutes equal to your con score.

>>13574422
I guess i could do that, but I just dont much like them. a Zombie PC should be absurdly durable and cavalier with their physical form. stabbed through the chest? minor inconvenience. arm cut off? pick it up and hit people with it. stuck in manacles? break your hand and slide it out. I feel that a unique race would achieve this flavor than revenants, which are pretty much emo-goth Crow wannabes.

I have to explain, I'm usually better at mechanics. I'm just not super-experienced with 4E; the mathematics underlying balance are really opaque to me, and what you're seeing here is all early brainstorming. I'm basically typing from scribbles in a notebook.

>>13574676
>I'd like to work in some sort of folkloric method to trap them in one form but can't think of a good one.

Stealing the seal-skin shedded is one folkloric way straight from folklore.

Feel free to steal other methods.. like.. hmm.. Successfully stealing a lock of hair and tying it in a knot that you seal with a drop of your own blood?

Trap them in seal form by.. catching sight of them changing and crossing your fingers? Netting them in a net woven of moonbeams?

myth is quiet on the concept of the whole "keeping them seals" idea.

>>13574873
You stole my words you tar/tg/rabber!

I approve of 'folkloric' ways of catching them as seals though. Maybe you have to wrap them with a net cursed under a new moon, or feed them a fish dipped thrice in a dead lake(like the dead sea)

>>13574828
Arg, but it's not going to be "isolated" in that sense. I kind of like gritty swords-and-sorcery over high fantasy. Really, the intention is that a game set here will never need to go beyond the set region.

Anyways, it was going to be a huge island chain in the middle of fantasyland's largest ocean. it serves as a trade hub, since no one can get anywhere without stopping in to re-supply anyways, with traders from all over the world passing through the several ports, and large numbers of pirates preying on shipping. So a DM could have any random ethnic group or organization they want turn up.

>>13574910
>>13574873
Which would fit in with their origin as fey creatures. It would just be hard to fit into the stats for PCs. what's more, that folklore revolves around trapping selkie wives, and really doesnt have much to do with seals (pinnipeds are pretty interesting). And mythical selkies were all-female. (gee, i wonder why). There's a reason why selkies dont get much play these days; the myth is pretty shallow. There's not much to work with.

In this version, selkies would still have a fanservice function, but there would be male ones too. they're the CG/CN free-spirit race, that includes bastardly tricksters and lovable rogues, not just magical girlfriends.

>>13574940
...It's a big island chain? Maybe archipellago might be a better term. Think South Pacific, here.

Honestly, from what I understand, this is sort of looking a little like the world of One Piece.

Okay, you tell me what the ideal geography would be for a high-seas adventure setting with lots of pirates and weird shit. My background is more in biology, less in nautical history. See pic. It's my previous attempt at a setting

>>13575015

Oh sweet, a Future is Wild setting? Hells yeah.

>>13575050
The carribian? the english channel? modern day Somalia? the Mediterranean? I figure that any place where ships are always coming and going, and has fucktons of islands of varying size would work well enough.

>>13575093
It was Land of the Lost + The Future Is Wild. The idea was a Africa Analogue that was hit in the past by a weird temportal fracturing, that caused creatures from the past and future to get dumped into one place. after a lot of extinctions, things settled into a semi-stable ecology. And then human explorers start exploring and exploiting it.

I called it Riven.

There were sentient Raptors and weird-looking treefolk and 4-armed diplocaulus that were like a horrible combination of joe pesci and a klingon. There were gorgonopsids and dinosaurs and quadruped birds and walking plants and giant forest squid and weird floaty semi-energy butterfly/jellyfish from the far, far future. and psionic massai and their rebelious psionic robot creations (shardmind refluf).

And the metaplot was that the Ethergaunts had caused the event as part of their racial apotheosis millenia ago, and were now coming back, and regarded all this wonderful diversity as a weed-infested lawn in need of some roundup. So everyone would have to band together to stop the interdimensional magiteck-using eldrich abominations. It was supposed to be a metaphor of "bad" science against "good" science.

>>13575237
And there was a undead cancer in the middle of it, a resident evil/deadspace-esque zombie growth that re-animated everything down to the trees and soil bacteria, that was already the focus of a crusade from some good-aligned faiths, and a mass pilgrimage from death cultists and necromancers across the world.

But, it turned out that no one apart from me liked it. So my interest waned.

>>13575237
>>13575280

But... this sounds hilariously fun D:

Gentlemen, if I may make a suggestion for the setting: the north African coast in the 17th century was a haven for pirates. How much of a haven? Well, enough of a haven for Barbary corsairs to launch raids on Ireland and Iceland, attack England, and force the British navy to come down with a fleet of ships. TWICE. Just to stop one little port.

Of course you'll probably be working for a guild of corsairs, and being a bunch of slavers and pirates. But I think this setting could be used to great effectiveness.

>>13575149
well, hell. back during the 1700s, at what level were those surrounding nations at?

Looks like I have a bigger geographical job than I thought. I need a location that can support at least 3 official port cities, and a few pirate hives of scum and villainy, as well as wacky wayside tribes and weird-ass shit, including bermuda trangles, AND a fracturing underwater empire.

>>13575362
hmmmm...I was think that the main political force would be "official" nations and their trade cartels, and the pirates would scrape a living off of raiding them. But maybe having the pirates and free ports being the primary location would be better. I dont know. I wanted there to be options for "quasi-legitimate" trade, where the PCs could Firefly around if they wanted to, always worried about both the "official" brittish-empire types and the nastier types of pirate.

if you really want to put guns in your campaign, just don't stick to what guns really were, stick to their idealization while scaling okay in-game.

have them do d10-d12 damage, same reload time as a crossbow (unless you get some fancy magic/master-craft one), with crit x3 but increase range penalties to the degree that it's most accurate just within charge range and you can't use them to sneak attack.

that's my take on it at any rate. if I used guns, they'd be dwarven make and the best would bascially be rifle sized/shaped revolvers (those would be the nicest), with grunts and low-levels sticking to regular rifles, pistols and shotgun-like contraptions. For adventurers they'd most often be part luxury item.

>>13575367

>favors the Wizard class

Raptor Wizard. Fucking thanks, now I have a new worst fear.

Flying spiders are now SECOND.

>>13575322
thank you, but apparently no one in my circle of friends cares one jot about biology. No one had any interest in playtesting a short adventure, I had trouble coming up with just one semi-original intro adventure.

It was just my little private fap-fest playground of raptors and tree-people and squibbons, full of stuff that apparently only I liked, and really obscure references to stuff no one else had heard of, like Robota, Raptor Red, and The Future is Wild..

>>13575422
Allow me to explain, the Barbary states that made up the four nations on the north African coast were tributaries to the Ottoman empire. Don't get me wrong, there were plenty of ports you could find in the Mediterranean that catered to pirates. Hell there were villages and hamlets in IRELAND that catered to pirates. Paying off the governor? Normal MO for the Barbary corsairs.

There are also some options for legitimate trade. Typically this would be done with armed merchant vessels that the pirates had captured. really, the line where piracy started and service to your country ended was quite a bit blurry! Although if you WERE a Barbary corsair the majority of your trade would go through Barbary ports. Since they paid the best.

>>13575280
I actually looked at all your threads I saw and followed them. I cribbed the idea of using Ethergaunts as BBEGs for my campaign setting. Do you have a wiki for the setting or anything similar?

Islands like Hawaii that are in the middle of nowhere are pretty rare. Islands usually form near other things like other islands or continents due to the way plate tectonics work.

>>13575528
There is always the "it's magic!" option, but it's usually nice to have regions to travel around.

>>13575479
I have a word document and some poorly-balanced monster statblocks, and a few pages of sketches.

Glad to know someone noticed. For now, it's a back-pocket setting. Maybe one of these days, Ill accumulate enough mini-setting ideas to connect them all into a big mega-setting.

here's the word document. It's open-office
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=VSXWDZL1

>>13575528
Oy, I was really thinking of a fuckhuge mega-archipelago that was pretty much the only safe stopover point for shipping going across fantasyland's ocean, and someone decided to middle-man the fuck out of the situation, and everything sort of built up from there. It would allow for a semi-stable pirate culture that would allow for monkey-island jokes and suchlike. I mean, any setting with pirates as the protagonists is going to be a little lighthearted,and play fast and loose with historical accuracy. Yarrr, yo-ho-ho, how about another mug 'o grog and suchlike.

But this is easily revised.

There's a nation that I came up with that could be nearby, a good place for the PCs to visit.

The Dragocracy. Imagine North Korea, but Kim-jong-il is a very lazy red dragon. A while ago, a dragon took over the country, and now there's only 2 rules: Feed the dragon, and add to the hoard. Now the entire nation's economy and foreign policy is based on piling shiny things in the hollowed out shell of the capitol's castle. If they dont, the dragon starts burning things.

It also makes them kind of feared, because the dragon also has relatives, so their navy is always backed up by dragons and dragon-blooded sorcerors. And dragon-hybrid war beasts. Actually, this red dragon is sounding a lot less lazy the more i think about it. I'm just amused by the idea of a lazy villian that spends all his time wallowing in his own crapulence.

I'm trying to get together a campaign very similar to yours, I used the Philippines as my Islands, it's big, it's got lots of Islands and Bigger land masses where bigger kingdoms/empires may reside, making it easier for them to try to colonize/fight over these Islands as well...

The Pic is a creature that lives on the beach on the islands For my game.

>>13575763
>>13575763
A super-aggressive, awesome-looking sea-slug? I like. Does it have a poisonous harpoon-tongue or anything else absurdly unfair? I've always liked marine creatures that make people go "Oh, Come ON; what the fuck, nature?"

>>13575858

It's called a Nudibranch, IRL,They can produce toxins that can cause the attack's heart slow down, and lower it's blood pressure to give it enough time to escape.

They can also excrete acid from there skin. I'm making mine range from normal sizes (about an 8th of an inch- 24 inches) to Shark Size

Here's another one

Okay, here's a rough idea for Sahuagin stats
(damn it, I can never spell that name right).

I thought they would make a good semi-evil race. Idea is that the merfolk conquered them long ago, split up their power by playing the tribes against eachother, and now use them as it's military. (if you havent noticed the theme, the Merfolk use dickery and mind-magic to conquer other races to do work they'd rather not do themselves.) Now, the Sahuagin are starting to unite under one charismatic leader, gearing up to topple the merfolk once and for all.

suddenly, I'm getting a Krogan vibe off of them. But whichever.

For stats, I'm thinking +2 str, +2 con or int. I recall them being pretty smart in 3.5, and I like the idea of sahuagin war wizards shooting electricity at people.

+2 intimidate, +2 athletics
Natural Armor: +1 AC
and maybe one more ability, but I can't think of one. Maybe the Tiefling "more damage to bloodied target" thing?
And their racial power would be Blood Frenzy. I know this one will sound crazy, but hear me out

Blood Frenzy
At-will, Minor action.
Make a basic attack. You may use this power only if you are bloodied, and only if you have already hit with an encounter or daily attack power this turn.

I don't know if anyone has said it yet but maybe a large to huge mantis shrimp? It would make one hell of a siege tank.

>>13576015
Hell, mantis shrimp-based creature should be the setting's chull. They're disturbingly intelligent for a crustacean. They also tend to create tunnels and lairs and decorate the enterances to their lairs with the shells and bones of their previous kills.

As a monster...oh man, a 4E monster mantis shrimp...has to be at least elite, if not solo. given it's internet memetic badass status, it HAS to be a solo monster.

Mantis Shrimp. Level 10 solo lurker.

Size...diminutive.

Maybe a picture that can help with the Agyrosa? So you don't have to worry about using Abe

>>13576086
May god help them if they're actually in the water when it throws a punch. How would the punch react in air? I know it punches fast enough to boil water and shit.

>>13576144
Being squiddy might actually work for them. I just find it less plausible than a fish-man with gills and webbed feet. I know, I know, I see no problem with gilled mammals, but tentacles on their heads is where I draw the line? Even I think that makes no sense. If it were completely up to me, they'd be 100% squid, like the Cephalids from mtg.

Also, they're based of Thane, as well. In that they're used by another race as assassins.

>>13576197

In MTG, Merfolk have feet now too~ I got a page that has the stats for a Skyshark if you want it

I'm using these guys as natives of my islands

>>13576284
Oh yeah, and before that, they could shapechange their tails into legs to walk on land. But I like the old vodalians, and I've always slightly disliked merfolk (in a good way, because I love to hate them).

And now the ones on Zendikar are literally Abe Sapien. I'm okay with this, though I do like vedalken whenever they turn up.

And lizard-people are always awesome. Maybe it's just because of how much I like Krogan. whichever; I'd love to see a skyshark statblock.

Enjoy~

>>13576284
Nice, but it should have a more monitor-lizard head.

It's weird how smart komodo dragons are, actually. Zookeepers say that working with them is like working with a mammal. They recognize different individuals, respond to calls, enjoy being stroked and scratched, and engage in play behavior. They always investigate changes in their environment, too.

>>13576002
can I get an opinion/ideas on the sahuagin? Is there any chance that anything resembling the Blood Frenzy ability will be balanced?

Well, thanks for all the critique. I'll have another crack at race stats, think whether i really want to bother with guns, do a re-design of the tenative setting geography, based on north africa's age of piracy, and all that stuff.

Thanks for everything, I'm archiving the thread for further use, but if anyone comes along later, please post your thoughts. I'll check the thread tomorrow morning if it's still here.

ATM, I'm still working on a name for the setting. Brine is the best I can come up with

tl;dr how is this different from Endless Isles?
http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/10051759/

>>13576546
Just take a look at the shifters if you're interested in a blood frenzy ability. MBA spam is no good. +1 to AC is also no good either unless it's part of the racial power (like with shifters).