Game idea's been on the back burner for quite some time. Basic premise follows

Higher level Eberron game (somewhere between 8th and 15th), with a focus on leaving behind the usual Eberron staples and trying to seek a solution to one of the enduring mysteries of Eberron.

You are an expedition requested by Prince Oargev, funded by House Cannith and House Orien (with cooperation from the rest of the Twelve in theory) to go into the Mournland and discover the location of Metrol. Once there you will spend at least half a year documenting the surrounding area, with trips back to Gatherhold for supplies until you can establish a supply train with the help of Orien. Cannith wants Metrol found to determine if their enclave still remains and what can be recovered. Orien wants to once again unite the West and East Lightning Rail lines.

This may require you to come into conflict with the Lord of Blades, so the Twelve (and Oargev) have chosen the best.

None of the longterm plans will survive more than a day or two of entry into Metrol, as the party stumbles upon a manifest zone to Mabar and the real story starts.

Based on Keith Baker's blog posts about Mabar and the planes tendency to take parts of the worlds that touch it and slowly digest them into the plane, the land that Cyre lost during the Mourning in this game now lies on the fringes of Mabar. The yugoloths, nightshades, undead and succubi of Mabar menace the borders and worm their way into the heart of the country, and Queen Danelle still reigns, convinced that the wall of night that surround her nation is a trick by the would-be usurper nations of the former Galifer.

So some types of characters (ones tied to specific areas to make their powers work like the Thunder Guide) won't be very successful in this game.

Thoughts, interest? Suggestions and critiques? Foreseeable pitfalls?
This message was last updated by the user at 16:58, Mon 05 Mar 2018.

In reply to RosstoFalstaff (msg # 1):

Sounds like a fun game. I'd be interested, but it sounds like it's 3.5, which I don't care for. If it were 4th Edition, I'd love to be on-board.

'Tis sadly 3.5. 4th would require learning a completely new system for me (yes, I know)

I know 5e and 3.5 and PF

In reply to RosstoFalstaff (msg # 3):

Oh, well. Good luck anyway.


Since it's a rather involved concept, I recommend working out many of the details with the players beforehand, even if this means revealing some of your plans. Not just telling them the details you've come up with, but working with them to invent details together. They'll enjoy the details more and work with them rather than against them.

Advice highly appreciated! Thank you

This intrigues me mightily.  There's some interesting things for Eberron planes in the Player's Guide to Eberron (the Planeswalkers? I'd have to double-check), fascinating character options for a game of this sort.  I once ran several sessions in the Mournlands, and it was a great place to really let your imagination go wild.  (And dark.)

This sounds like a fantastic story idea.  If you know anything about 5E I would strongly suggest using it instead of either 3.5 or Pathfinder as it is far more compatible with the required ratio of story time to combat time for a play by post game.

There is still a lot of good setting data in the older books but the system mechanics for 5e are just so much more in line with what D&D was always intended to be and modernized to boot that it turns out better.

Let's not spend all our energies on trying to sell OP on using a different system. They want to run 3.5, let them. Besides, there's a whole slew of material specifically for that system in Eberron -- and it's what they're familiar with.

That being said, you can count me in. I'm pretty much onboard with anything Eberron, regardless of edition. I can make pretty much anything that would mesh with the groups's needs (as well as the campaign), and I'll be more than happy to help anyone make characters.

'Cause 3.5 also includes my own creation (see under my username on the left).

I'm game.

that sounds like an amazing game you can count me in too!

Count me in!

I'm honestly torn between 3.5 and 5th edition.

On the one hand I agree that 5th is simpler but I've next to no experience DMing it. It is mercifully understandable to a 3.5 nut though, and a good amount of Baker's fluff and blog posts are 5e now so we wouldn't lack for ways to Ebberon-ize

But 3.5 is something I'm very familiar with. It has the Eberron specific monsters, feats and classes. It has the artificer, which 5e still hasn't nailed down (nor have they figured out Eberron specific races in any official capacity (just homebrew), and the Kalashtar and psionics remain entirely outside 5e)

I vote for 3.5 personally, if that helps.

I would also vote for 3.5.  I've never played 5e (though I own the PHB), and I have many fond memories of pouring over my 3.5 Eberron books.

There are indeed some system mechanic questions 5e would want to look into for making Eberron work but having played a 5e warforged artificer up to about 15th level I can tell you it works just fine and isn't particularly tricky if all you are looking to do is get the mood and feel right, rather than trying to do a literal system mechanic conversion.

I vote 3.5 I do not have a lot of experience with 5e...

I would also be interested whether 3.5 or 5e. Two of my favorite characters came from that world :)

In reply to ennervance (msg # 17):

Oh? Official setting characters or interesting characters you've played?

Otherwise, looks like most people are leaning on 3.5

Interesting characters. One an artificer, one a kobold sorcerer/barbarian/abjurant champion. My preference is 3.5 for variety of official support available.

I am interested too if it is a 3.5 game.

I would like to participate too.

Does anyone have any opinions on the level? Should we skew low to preserve the low-power feel of Eberron or skew higher to really revel in the planar danger?

low level would be a bit of a struggle with planar danger/exploration. Depending on leveling speed starting low and easing into the planar craziness could be a good way to go.

Leveling speed in rpol is always slow :)
I would prefer to start as high as possible.

Party level depends on how you want us to plane-hop.

Using spells, ethereal jaunt is 7th level, but only affects the caster. It also only goes to the Ethereal Plane. Etherealness is 9th level and would affect at least five other beings plus the caster. Astral projection is also 9th level, and would bring along at least eight warm bodies. Gate, also 9th level, would take as many people as can cram through it while it's open.

But plane shift, 5th level for a cleric (7th for wizards), lets a group of eight instantly travel to the plane of their choice. They just have to research how to reach it -- traditionally, a metal tuning fork is used in the spell, and the fork's tone and metal determine the destination. (There was a lengthy article in an old Dragon Magazine detailing it, if you want me to see if I can relocate it.) Eberron's planes would require you to create your own keys.

So, giving the party the means on their own, you'd need at least 5th level cleric spells which means a 9th level party at minimum.

If you want to use magic items, that opens up other possibilities. You could always simply put the required plane-hopping spell(s) on scrolls, but that's a bit pedestrian.

• A staff of passage can cast astral projection for two charges. (CL 17th, 170,500 gp)
• An amulet of the planes works like plane shift but if you blow the Intelligence check you go to a random location (or plane). (CL 15th, 120,000 gp)
• A cubic gate would have to have five of its destination planes set in advance, and it opens to random locations, so you'd end up with a bit of a "Sliders" vibe because each trip is taking a chance. (CL 13th, 164,000 gp)
• A well of many worlds works somewhat like a portable hole, except that every time you open it, it opens to a random spot on a random plane. It's a two-way gate, but every time you pick it up you don't know where it'll open next. (CL 17th, 82,000 gp)

And that's just the stuff from the SRD. This being Eberron, you could always make some sort of eldritch machine that creates gates -- sort of like a Stargate. You could make it where it automagically yanks travelers back after a certain time, so each trip would have a time limit. Or establish fixed gates on each destination plane, but that would require thinking about the strategic use of them.

All those points about travel are good ones, so I will not even try to add to them.

Eberron does have a bit of a bias to lower level wider spread power and magic.  Lots of industrial and NPC magic access points all hover around the 5th level range but several prominent NPCs, along with the inference of many more unmentioned, are in the far more formidable 13-18th level range.

The world is less NPC power heavy than other older worlds but there is no part of that lowered and widened stance on power or magic that is intended to force or even slow down PCs from being quite high level.

We could just as easily be new planer explorers at 9th level as a Gate fueled precision strike team at 17th.  With RPOL's slow leveling pattern we need not worry about accidentally leveling characters over the intended threshold for the game, but should not count on attaining it through play either, start the game where it needs to be and just leave it there.

If you want a personal preference (rather than a reason) I like 16th level for intentionally higher powered games, particularly if there is no plan to advance.
This message was last edited by the user at 13:20, Thu 08 Mar 2018.

So 9th?

If I am remembering correctly in the Eberron setting specifically there are areas where you can cross over into different planes as a level 1 character you just have to be in the right place on the right day. Also depending on if you are wanting to jump down the rabbit hole of variant rules you could pull in incantation rules (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/vari...gic/incantations.htm). Heck incantation could loosely be used as the driving force behind the mournland's creation and it converging with the other plane.

Like Ravidge said, there are places where the worlds bleed over, no need for higher level spells to get there or even cross over into other planes.

That said, having an escape hatch way of getting out (even just a way to read a higher-level scroll) would be very pleasant, assuming we know what we're getting into.

There is also the point of whoever is sending us into the Mournland is going to send people who are strong enough to survive its very real dangers.

9th-12th level seems a good place to start - that allows us a lot of room for multi-classing or taking prestige classes, while not being so high level that we get too cocky.  ;)

To clarify the commonality of magic:

• Low-level spells (1st-3rd level) are very common. Anyone with a reasonable education will have heard of spell effects like detect magic and invisibility and fireball. Events involving spells at this tier make the news because of the events themselves, not because of the magic involved.
• Mid-level spells (4th-7th) are very uncommon. People who live around magic -- like the citizens of Passage -- will know something about the spells unique to this tier. If something happens involving spells like this, it'll make the news because of that.
• High-level spells (8th-9th) are vanishingly rare. Casters with this level of power tend to keep it a secret, or are so well-known that they are essentially celebrities (like Tira Miron, the Voice of the Silver Flame; when within the confines of the church she is essentially 20th level). Use of magic this high will not only make the news, but might cause political upheaval.

So the lowest-level spells are basically a household term, but there is a sharp drop-off where most people never see a spell above 3rd level.


You're thinking of the sort of transition possible while a plane is coterminous, where it intersects with the Prime Plane. Most of the planes have specific times when this happens -- some of them happen every few months, others are years apart. There are a couple planes that are so far off that they might as well never intersect, and one that has a completely random 'orbit'.

For instance, when the plane of Mabar, the Endless Night, is coterminous, it's possible to enter that plane physically by walking into a deep-enough shadow.

I vote Hendell's idea, 16th.

With this many posts in the thread, it should be clear whether or not there is sufficient interest in this idea to warrant creating a game around it.  Please save all further discussion for that game, created by RosstoFalstaff (should they decide to go ahead with it), and linked to in the post immediately following this one.

Thank you.

link to another game

The game, such as it is currently. I know interest is high so I got it up as quick as I could. Still working on some things, more later