I am considering running a game that would focus on a group of magic users that have travelled from around the world to seek the training of an archmage that is nearing the end of his years, and has opened his tower to train heirs to his knowledge.
I was thinking a higher power game, with gestalt characters, with each player required to have an arcane caster of some sort on one side of the gestalt mix.  I was thinking 6th level to start, and considering some sort of set up where all players were alowed to play +2 level adjustment races, or be given bonus feats or abilities to compensate.  I feel this could allow a more ecclectic mix of would-be apprentices.

My question is.... Which setting to use, faerun or eberron? Eberron would add the artificer into the mix, as well as dragonshards and a host of other interesting magic to use.  The downside to eberron is the lower normal level average of the world, and the much smaller variety of people in khorvaire.  Faerun adds a much greater variety of origins for the players, and a much higher level of power in the world.  The downside is, there are a lot of high power mages in the world, making it a lot harder for the characters to feel significant as they go.

Just wanted to hear some opinions on this, or possible solutions, and if this idea was interesting to people.
This message was last edited by the user at 20:46, Mon 16 Nov 2015.

Eh. I'd steer clear of Faerun. Faerun has a major problem that it has a -lot- of high level NPCs. In usual games, you can avoid that by just saying they're busy. But this game in particular, feels like those high level NPCs would provide a problem.

Don't know much about Eberron, but it seems like it could be fun in Eberron.

Concerning the ECL races, I would consider this: Have the level adjustment take up one side of the gestalt (probably the non-mage side) for as many levels as the level adjustment is.

A +2 LA Wizard/Fighter would be

1 Wizard / 1 LA
2 Wizard / 2 LA
3 Wizard / 1 Fighter
4 Wizard / 2 Fighter
5 Wizard / 3 Fighter
6 Wizard / 4 Fighter

If I end up using the level adjustment thing, I will likely just offer a set number of bonus feats or other things to those who play more mundane races, thus making all characters effectively have a +2 level adjustment, cancelling it all out.  Then it will just be on me to balance encounters accordingly.

After thinking about it, I think I will run the game in Eberron, likely putting the archmage's tower in southern Eldeen Reaches, so it is near a lot of interesting places.  The game would be a mix of exploration, intrigue, and adventure, focusing on magic and mystical mysteries.  Would there be interest in such a game?