3 brothers and D&D

Talith

So my two brothers and I have just gotten into D&D 4E. My two brothers are a bit game centric so they probably prefer the combat more than anything else in the game.

What I want to do is create a campaign that is less about dungeon diving and more like an SRPG.
I'm talking about a campaign in the vein of Final Fantasy Tactics or Ogre Battle. As such I would probably have them fight more often than not against other humanoids, with occasional monster battles mixed in.

Does anyone have any ideas that can help me make this work?

Right now I'm trying to create the setting; I'm thinking of a story thats pits two factions overtly vying for power, meanwhile 3 independent but powerful organizations are in the background covertly doing their thing. Probably some kind of Arcane centric group, a Divine centric group, and some kind of corporation. For sidequests and filler there could be even smaller groups, some group of thieves or other merc. forces.

Should I railroad them and decide what their relationship to the factions are? Should I let them decide their place in the world after hearing the setting? Should I start them off as one of the many independent merc forces caught in the middle and then get them caught up in the grand scheme? How would I handle treasure after battle? Is there a guideline when it comes to character levels and equipment; i.e. by level X the characters should have access to items y and z?

If the characters join a faction outright, then battle over territory is easy to resolve, generic soldiers of their faction take over while they go about their thing. If they are doing things independently and small time, then they don't have to worry about leaving a garrison at a fort they claimed or anything like that. But what If they try to carve out their own faction? What if they decide that they are strong enough and start trying to claim territory and take out both main factions?

As for actual battles, how do you handle elevation? Because of the setting, fighting in cities and other above ground locales will be frequent. I'd like it if the more agile characters can reach higher areas, giving skills like athletics and acrobatics a use.

How could I show that kind of topography on the battlemap? I was thinking of creating carton paper sets to place on the map to make everything more visual.

I'm trying to gather my thoughts while asking for help and ideas from those more experienced than I.

Figgy

With that thread title, I was expecting a video of you guys shitting on D&D minis and eating them.

Anyway... pick up Dungeon Delve and just do the dungeons there. You don't need to do any of the storyline/roleplay stuff in any module, really.

As for dungeon sets, I use the Wizards dungeon tiles (scanned and reproduced, cause the ones I have are so old they're falling apart) and stacks of poker chips underneath for when I want to raise the elevation.

Helix09

Talith wrote: »

Right now I'm trying to create the setting; I'm thinking of a story thats pits two factions overtly vying for power, meanwhile 3 independent but powerful organizations are in the background covertly doing their thing. Probably some kind of Arcane centric group, a Divine centric group, and some kind of corporation. For sidequests and filler there could be even smaller groups, some group of thieves or other merc. forces.

In general the Eberron campaign setting for D&D 3.5 is chock full of ideas for a political backstory for your campaign. Heck you could even set it during the time of the Last War when all five kingdoms were duking it out. Just adapt a bunch of stuff and if you like it long term the 4.0 setting will be out for june.

Talith

I'm enjoying both suggestions. We can play using the Dungeon Delve, just enjoying the combat and getting better at running a game while the campaign I want for later. I can probably even reuse some of the delves, changing details to make it fit and seem fresh.

I really like what I read in the Eberron entry on wiki. Prevalent low level magic, muddied alignment, less importance of gods, trains, skyships, magical beings, I'm guessing more racial integration as well. It sounds like a hot setting.

I think I'll do just that. Run a group of their characters through the delves so we can get used to the combat and powers and how the game works, as well as preparing tiles and generally how we plan on representing the game. In the meantime I can collect my ideas and when the revamped Eberron setting hits I can try and tie it all together.

Thanks

Figgy

Also consider what many people on this board have done for battle grids. I'm thinking of picking one up myself, even though I have hundreds of dungeon tiles--they're kind of annoying and move around when moving minis/markers around the map.

Go to your local hardware store and pick up a big sheet of shower board or similar white plastic material. Then, use a permanent marker and draw a 1" x 1" grid, leaving a blank white area around the board. When it dries, you'll have a perfect battle grid that you can use dry erase markers on, or even just plop dungeon tiles on top of for easier arrangement. Players can use the blank outer border for jotting down their own notes or just doodling.

delroland

If you want this to be about the strategery :P as opposed to the roleplaying, I would suggest giving each player multiple characters. You could even give each player a stable of characters, but only allow them to use two or three each from that stable per battle. You could introduce new classes (PH2, FRPG) through having the group rescue (or defeat) various NPC's in some battles, thus adding those characters to the stable.