Bride of Pre-/Post-Faction War

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Anarch's picture
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Bride of Pre-/Post-Faction War

My PS campaign started today. Seemed to go pretty well; ran them through Chapter One of the Great Modron March (trip to Automata) to acclimate one and all to the glories of Planescape. Upon their return to Sigil I'm going to need to decide whether to place this pre- or post- Faction War and frankly, I'm torn. On the one hand, I vastly prefer the pre-Faction War kriegstanz with its frisson of barely-repressed hostilities (as opposed to the almost post-apocalyptic expiation that post-FW Sigil has); on the other, the new PSCS takes FW as canon, more or less, all the factional feats have been written to represent that, and I'm not particularly eager to try writing up balanced factional feats on the fly.

Mechanically, it's not going to matter much when we decide on FW since I've restricted the players from joining a faction for a few more runs at least. [They might make namer in some of the more popular factions, e.g. the Sensates, but they won't get anything meaningful from it until then.] In terms of the theme, though, it makes a huge difference, especially since I'd like to run a mostly Sigil adventure next in the wake of the March. So: what are people's thoughts on the question? Is the barrier of not having factional feats (or factional PrCs) too high/too irritating to surmount? Should I succumb to the siren song of pre-existing, and therefore presumably somewhat balanced, feats and such? And what are people's experiences running the 2e adventures converted into 3.x?

ripvanwormer's picture
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Bride of Pre-/Post-Faction War

Yeah. Honestly, that's why Planewalker's use of a post-Faction War setting as the default bothers me.

Zach Shuford's Kriegstanz site is pre-Faction War. It may or may not be perfectly balanced, but he tried hard and someone has to test things out.

There should be other faction feats on Planewalker, of course, by Xan and others.

eldersphinx's picture
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Bride of Pre-/Post-Faction War

I dunno, I'm more of a post-FW person myself as a default for a campaign. Pre-FW, you can't throw a rock in Sigil without hitting at least three faction plots, which can prove to be a distraction if you want your game to deal with non-faction matters. In-party bickering about how large a club each PC's personal philosophy gets proves to be kinda a bummer when you really want your players to be interfering in the lives of Tiamat, Demogorgon, Primus and Talisid, after all. Sticking out tongue

That, and it's easy enough to start the kriegstanz up again, post-FW. Somewhat more jarring to do so pre-FW, and possibly unfair to your players as well.

My 2% of a Federal Reserve Note, in any case.

ripvanwormer's picture
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Bride of Pre-/Post-Faction War

I don't dislike post-Faction War by any means; it's just somewhat awkward to make it the default, since I feel the actual Faction War adventure should only happen when a campaign is ready for it. For some people, this might be years before the campaign actually starts, but that should be each groups' individual decision.

I'm not requesting that all the Planewalker campaign setting documents be revised, or anything; they're good as they are. I'm just blurting out an opinion.

Rhys's picture
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Bride of Pre-/Post-Faction War

Well, rather than write up your own material for your campaign, there is still some good material to be found in the Planewalker feats for Pre-FW campaigns. Mind's Eye feats are often useful for Signers or Believers. Sodkiller feats are still useful for Mercykillers. And so on.

But I would really like to see the factions return to their former glory.

Almighty Watashi's picture
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Bride of Pre-/Post-Faction War

I run pre-war. The group (me included) is still young, inexperienced and haven't lived through any official planescape adventure books (with them being 2e and all)

Anarch's picture
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Bride of Pre-/Post-Faction War

'Rhys' wrote:
Well, rather than write up your own material for your campaign, there is still some good material to be found in the Planewalker feats for Pre-FW campaigns. Mind's Eye feats are often useful for Signers or Believers. Sodkiller feats are still useful for Mercykillers. And so on.

To some extent yes, to some extent no. There are a gazillion cool-looking feats that could be incorporated into pre-FW but a) they're not compiled into a useful list (collected yes, compiled no), b) most haven't been vetted for balance or playability, c) they're not numerically balanced between faction (i.e. there are a lot more feats suitable for some factions than others) and d) I'm not sure how many have been converted to 3.5. Additionally, the number of PrCs or other tangible namer/factor benefits for pre-FW is (understandably) rather low and the coverage is rather spotty.

All of this is surmountable given enough time. Unfortunately, time is the one resource I lack.

[Incidentally, was anyone else as underwhelmed as I with the Planar Handbook, even in 3.5? The new races were meh, the feats were boring, the PrCs were lame and the spells vacillated between cutesy and ridiculously overpowered. About the only thing I've liked are the planar substitution levels and even they're not wonderful...]

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Bride of Pre-/Post-Faction War

I liked some of the Planar Handbook's prestige classes. I didn't compare them to other classes power-wise, but I thought many of the abilities and requirements were well chosen. For example, the way that high-level Sensates have to experience death to continue on in their class.

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Bride of Pre-/Post-Faction War

'ripvanwormer' wrote:
I liked some of the Planar Handbook's prestige classes. I didn't compare them to other classes power-wise, but I thought many of the abilities and requirements were well chosen. For example, the way that high-level Sensates have to experience death to continue on in their class.

... And continue to be utterly useless, since the abilities that the PrC offers can't really compare with the requirements. To be a 10th-level Ardent Dilletante, you need to be a Warrior-Mage-Priest-Rogue (and a resurrected one, too), and that kind of multiclassing is not practical at all, escpecially when the PrC gives you bad BAB, bad progression for Fort and Will, and mighty abilities like scent and sense link.

Even Sensates should be more focused than that.

[/OT]

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Bride of Pre-/Post-Faction War

We have an ardent dilletante in the party Laughing out loud

It was easier for him to start sooner because he always had knowledge(planes) as a class skill (in my campaign, planars have that)

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