The Valley Part 3 - 4E + Classes & Races
Ok, so far I’ve given the origins of the chaotic thought processes that coalesced into the Valley and then the impact that PC’s had on the world.
Now I’ve got to toss 4E D&D into the mix in addition to any other things I’d like to add or change.
First I need to decide what I’m including and not. The first step, and arguably the most important, what races and classes can the players take for their PC’s.
While I’m a fan of letting players make PC’s using all rules available, this is not going to be a totally open-ended campaign where the DM decides what’s going to happen Thursday night. This campaign has its limitations based on the story, and yes, the DM’s liking and disliking of certain pieces of 4E.
My original plan was to allow around 8 races and 8 classes. I’m glad to say I’ve gotten quite close to that.
My goals is to have no classes or races that go against the setup of the world I’ve made so far, or that have the potential to cause a large amount of time sink.
So let us go through the races in order as they appear in the PHB & PHB2 (nothing from FR).
(Note – some “Out” races and classes could appear in the DM’s hands. Unfair? Too bad. I’m not letting the PC’s play mind flayers either. Got a problem with that? Some classes and races are better suited for villains rather than PC’s.)
Dragonborn – Out
I promised awhile ago that they’d be out of my campaigns. While I’m not so much against them as I used to be, I don’t like their racial power as overly time-consuming, not very useful unless cleaning up minions, and usable way to often. Then, if I wanted to include them, I’d have to make some special rules like the world split into two 30,000 years ago and just recently remerged. How stupid of an idea is that?
Dwarf – In
This is a no-brainer since they’re part of the core story.
For this campaign they’ll come in 3 varieties: Ironmonger dwarves, Silverhome dwarves, and outsiders (meaning they’re normal dwarves from outside the Valley).
Eladrin – In
I’ve decided to split the original elves from the Valley into eladrin and elves while explaining it away as “humans can’t tell the difference”. There is very little difference between Valley and outsider Eladrins.
Elf – In
Ditto the eladrin info.
Half-elf – In
Yet another no-brainer, though there not any human/eladrin children…yet.
Note – the half-elf dilettante power must come from the approved classes.
Halfling – In
This race barely made it, only because not having them would feel “wrong”. All halflings are outsiders and to demonstrate the relative rarity of halflings, a player has a halfling PC only once. Death or bored of playing a halfling PC means no more halflings for that player.
Human – In
Maybe one day I’ll run a campaign where there are no humans. But not this time around. Humans are plentiful inside and outside of the Valley. I am tossing around the idea that humans from the Valley are slightly different from the PHB human, but I’m still working on that.
Tiefling – Out
Like the dragonborn, I also promised this race would be out when I ran a campaign. Granted I could probably allow someone to play one without as much of a story revision, I feel like the tiefling should be cut from the list.
Deva – Out
This just isn’t the campaign to allow this race.
Gnome – Out
This was a bare minimum cut. But given the gnome’s more nature-based origin moved it out of the approved list. Besides, I prefer more mechano-based gnomes (not tinker gnomes though).
Goliath – Out
Really WotC? You felt like this race needed to come back? Removed from the list due to it origins and that the DM hates them.
Half-orc – Out
I wanted to add this race, but the storyline guarantees that all orcs and half-orcs are killed on sight. I wouldn’t make an exception for a drow, so I won’t make one for a half-orc.
Shifter – In
I hated having to allow this class (being an Eberron creation and all), but their origins and the history of the Valley almost scream that they’re needed. So occasionally when two humans from the Valley have a child that child has the right jumble of DNA to make it a shifter. They are rare, so they have rules like that of the halfling. They also appear as human when in their normal form, but then get all freaky looking when stressed out (like being in combat).
So there we have 7 races, with some subtle differences within each race.
Now I’ll go through the classes, using the PHB, PHB2, Martial Power, & Arcane Powe.
Cleric – In
Though there are plenty of deities in the campaign world, only three will have a presence in the Valley. Accordingly only those 3 deities will have feats for usage with Channel Divinity.
Fighter – In
Every society needs it soldiers so the PHB1 fighters are allowed, but the PHB2’s tempest fighter is out because it turns the fighter into more of a striker, and the PHB2’s battlerager is out because I like minions and minions are worthless against them (or we’ve read the rules wrong).
Paladin – In
They are in and they have better starting gear than anyone else. But only one paladin can be played in the campaign, period. If the paladin dies, or the player gets sick of the paladin, then no one can take a paladin until a year of game time has passed. The paladin must also be a lawful good worshipper of Brekaneth and show himself/herself to be the pinnacle of all that is good within that clergy. The role-playing responsibilities of this PC are not small.
Ranger – In
The elves have taught the other races well, so rangers are in. But, for many reasons role-playing and not, beast master rangers are not allowed.
Rogue – In
The thieves’ guild in the Valley is powerful and organized. For that reason and more all three aspects of the rogue are allowed. Though if a rogue were to work independently of the guild (or um…go rogue), he might become black pudding food. Any PC from the Valley who has rogue abilities was trained by someone from the guild, and is thus a member whether they like it or not.
Warlock – Out
I have not liked this class since its beginning in 3E, but I despise them less now than I did before. Had I not liked the sorcerer, the warlock would have been a substitute, albeit a poor one. They make excellent villains, but I don’t think they should be a player class outside an evil campaign. I almost allowed the Fey Pact Warlock, but chose to just say no to the whole class.
Warlord – Out
I picture a warlord as a general leading his troops into battle. With some exceptions, there are no giant battles in the Valley. I want to have 2 leader classes available, but I’m not a fan of this classes player-helping-player buffs. Ditto that for the bard. So for the moment I’m dropping the warlord, with a “subject to change” sticker pasted on the class.
Wizard – In
Like the cleric, this class was pretty much guaranteed a spot. For now illusion magic is allowed, and possibly summoning magic though I’m going to smack it pretty hard.
Avenger – Out
So far the avenger appears to be a paladin on steroids. We’re already full on paladins.
Barbarian – Out
The Valley is too civilized for this to be a PC race.
Bard – In
For the moment I’m allowing the bard because their flair and jack-of-all-trades setup more suits the story than warlord does, but I’m not solid on this. I don’t like any class that has a lot of interrupting abilities that slow combat and warlord and bard both do that. It is entirely feasible that I could dump both warlord and bard.
Druid – Out
Out for the same reasons as the barbarian.
Invoker – In
The clergy of Brekaneth needed an answer to the wizard problem, and the invoker is what they came up with. All invokers must worship Brekaneth and must be from the Valley.
Shaman – Out
As you probably expected, the shaman won’t fit for the same reasons as the barbarian, druid, gnome, etc.
Sorcerer – In
The sorcerer definitely is living up to what I was hoping it to be, strong and random. For story reasons the dragon magic version of the class is out, all wild magic sorcerer PC’s must be born and raised in the Valley, and non-wild magic sorcerers must be from outside the Valley.
Warden – Out
I don’t think I’ll need to explain why.
Now we have 9 classes to work with; 2 leaders, 2 defenders, 2 controllers, and 3 strikers.
The players will receive a bit more information than this for the next step, which will begin some time in July when Dale will have to go on hiatus again.
That’s all I have for now.
Next time will be what happened in the Valley after the last PC’s left.
Now I’ve got to toss 4E D&D into the mix in addition to any other things I’d like to add or change.
First I need to decide what I’m including and not. The first step, and arguably the most important, what races and classes can the players take for their PC’s.
While I’m a fan of letting players make PC’s using all rules available, this is not going to be a totally open-ended campaign where the DM decides what’s going to happen Thursday night. This campaign has its limitations based on the story, and yes, the DM’s liking and disliking of certain pieces of 4E.
My original plan was to allow around 8 races and 8 classes. I’m glad to say I’ve gotten quite close to that.
My goals is to have no classes or races that go against the setup of the world I’ve made so far, or that have the potential to cause a large amount of time sink.
So let us go through the races in order as they appear in the PHB & PHB2 (nothing from FR).
(Note – some “Out” races and classes could appear in the DM’s hands. Unfair? Too bad. I’m not letting the PC’s play mind flayers either. Got a problem with that? Some classes and races are better suited for villains rather than PC’s.)
Dragonborn – Out
I promised awhile ago that they’d be out of my campaigns. While I’m not so much against them as I used to be, I don’t like their racial power as overly time-consuming, not very useful unless cleaning up minions, and usable way to often. Then, if I wanted to include them, I’d have to make some special rules like the world split into two 30,000 years ago and just recently remerged. How stupid of an idea is that?
Dwarf – In
This is a no-brainer since they’re part of the core story.
For this campaign they’ll come in 3 varieties: Ironmonger dwarves, Silverhome dwarves, and outsiders (meaning they’re normal dwarves from outside the Valley).
Eladrin – In
I’ve decided to split the original elves from the Valley into eladrin and elves while explaining it away as “humans can’t tell the difference”. There is very little difference between Valley and outsider Eladrins.
Elf – In
Ditto the eladrin info.
Half-elf – In
Yet another no-brainer, though there not any human/eladrin children…yet.
Note – the half-elf dilettante power must come from the approved classes.
Halfling – In
This race barely made it, only because not having them would feel “wrong”. All halflings are outsiders and to demonstrate the relative rarity of halflings, a player has a halfling PC only once. Death or bored of playing a halfling PC means no more halflings for that player.
Human – In
Maybe one day I’ll run a campaign where there are no humans. But not this time around. Humans are plentiful inside and outside of the Valley. I am tossing around the idea that humans from the Valley are slightly different from the PHB human, but I’m still working on that.
Tiefling – Out
Like the dragonborn, I also promised this race would be out when I ran a campaign. Granted I could probably allow someone to play one without as much of a story revision, I feel like the tiefling should be cut from the list.
Deva – Out
This just isn’t the campaign to allow this race.
Gnome – Out
This was a bare minimum cut. But given the gnome’s more nature-based origin moved it out of the approved list. Besides, I prefer more mechano-based gnomes (not tinker gnomes though).
Goliath – Out
Really WotC? You felt like this race needed to come back? Removed from the list due to it origins and that the DM hates them.
Half-orc – Out
I wanted to add this race, but the storyline guarantees that all orcs and half-orcs are killed on sight. I wouldn’t make an exception for a drow, so I won’t make one for a half-orc.
Shifter – In
I hated having to allow this class (being an Eberron creation and all), but their origins and the history of the Valley almost scream that they’re needed. So occasionally when two humans from the Valley have a child that child has the right jumble of DNA to make it a shifter. They are rare, so they have rules like that of the halfling. They also appear as human when in their normal form, but then get all freaky looking when stressed out (like being in combat).
So there we have 7 races, with some subtle differences within each race.
Now I’ll go through the classes, using the PHB, PHB2, Martial Power, & Arcane Powe.
Cleric – In
Though there are plenty of deities in the campaign world, only three will have a presence in the Valley. Accordingly only those 3 deities will have feats for usage with Channel Divinity.
Fighter – In
Every society needs it soldiers so the PHB1 fighters are allowed, but the PHB2’s tempest fighter is out because it turns the fighter into more of a striker, and the PHB2’s battlerager is out because I like minions and minions are worthless against them (or we’ve read the rules wrong).
Paladin – In
They are in and they have better starting gear than anyone else. But only one paladin can be played in the campaign, period. If the paladin dies, or the player gets sick of the paladin, then no one can take a paladin until a year of game time has passed. The paladin must also be a lawful good worshipper of Brekaneth and show himself/herself to be the pinnacle of all that is good within that clergy. The role-playing responsibilities of this PC are not small.
Ranger – In
The elves have taught the other races well, so rangers are in. But, for many reasons role-playing and not, beast master rangers are not allowed.
Rogue – In
The thieves’ guild in the Valley is powerful and organized. For that reason and more all three aspects of the rogue are allowed. Though if a rogue were to work independently of the guild (or um…go rogue), he might become black pudding food. Any PC from the Valley who has rogue abilities was trained by someone from the guild, and is thus a member whether they like it or not.
Warlock – Out
I have not liked this class since its beginning in 3E, but I despise them less now than I did before. Had I not liked the sorcerer, the warlock would have been a substitute, albeit a poor one. They make excellent villains, but I don’t think they should be a player class outside an evil campaign. I almost allowed the Fey Pact Warlock, but chose to just say no to the whole class.
Warlord – Out
I picture a warlord as a general leading his troops into battle. With some exceptions, there are no giant battles in the Valley. I want to have 2 leader classes available, but I’m not a fan of this classes player-helping-player buffs. Ditto that for the bard. So for the moment I’m dropping the warlord, with a “subject to change” sticker pasted on the class.
Wizard – In
Like the cleric, this class was pretty much guaranteed a spot. For now illusion magic is allowed, and possibly summoning magic though I’m going to smack it pretty hard.
Avenger – Out
So far the avenger appears to be a paladin on steroids. We’re already full on paladins.
Barbarian – Out
The Valley is too civilized for this to be a PC race.
Bard – In
For the moment I’m allowing the bard because their flair and jack-of-all-trades setup more suits the story than warlord does, but I’m not solid on this. I don’t like any class that has a lot of interrupting abilities that slow combat and warlord and bard both do that. It is entirely feasible that I could dump both warlord and bard.
Druid – Out
Out for the same reasons as the barbarian.
Invoker – In
The clergy of Brekaneth needed an answer to the wizard problem, and the invoker is what they came up with. All invokers must worship Brekaneth and must be from the Valley.
Shaman – Out
As you probably expected, the shaman won’t fit for the same reasons as the barbarian, druid, gnome, etc.
Sorcerer – In
The sorcerer definitely is living up to what I was hoping it to be, strong and random. For story reasons the dragon magic version of the class is out, all wild magic sorcerer PC’s must be born and raised in the Valley, and non-wild magic sorcerers must be from outside the Valley.
Warden – Out
I don’t think I’ll need to explain why.
Now we have 9 classes to work with; 2 leaders, 2 defenders, 2 controllers, and 3 strikers.
The players will receive a bit more information than this for the next step, which will begin some time in July when Dale will have to go on hiatus again.
That’s all I have for now.
Next time will be what happened in the Valley after the last PC’s left.
posted by BlueBlackRed at 7:00 AM
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