Things to Expect

Written by Shiftrex

General Expectations

1. Overland travel and exploration will be as much of a focus as combat and social interaction. The world is vast and you are encouraged to find what part of it that you belong to and what parts of it interest you.
2. Each race will have relations, customs, and cultures that make them unique. You do not have to adhere to anything but the culture and history will be there for you to engage with so that you can progress your character instead of just leveling them up session after session.
3. I will be engaged with your character, the town you came from, and all of your class abilities to help move play along at the table and create challenging encounters in the form of combat, puzzles, and social encounters.
4. Your character has a chance to die in this campaign because the encounters will be challenging so be ready with a second or third idea.
5. There are some rules and some custom options that we use at our table that may be different from others. Most of these are found through the "" navigation to include Spell Points, Downtime Activities, Overland Travel and more which are found below.

Miscellaneous Differences

Hit Points. Characters in this world are generally expected to be epic level to fit in with the high level of magic, danger, and forces around the world. Whenever you roll hit points for a level up you can either take your roll or you can take the median of the hit die so that you never get short-changed but you have the ability to reach for greater heights.
Critical Hits. When you roll a natural 20, it hurts to roll low, your critical hit should matter. Our crits will always take all of the dice into account that you are rolling and give you maxed out damage from them in addition to your standard roll so that it is always a hype moment. Depending on the situation you may also incur extra benefits to your party or detriments to the enemy.
Bonus Action. Any class always has the ability to use a potion with a bonus action or to use an unarmed attack as a bonus action. This is calculated using standard rules (Proficiency to hit & Damage = 1 + Strength).
Languages. Your languages will be more involved than they normally would be. If you know extra languages then you will have a corresponding sheet for the language, this will be used when you encounter writing that you need to decipher. If no one has the corresponding sheet for the writing then you will need to enlist the help of an expert to decipher the language.
Multi-Classing. Simply put, it is not as abusable in this world as it is in the base rules. When you level up you can't just "decide" to take a level in something like Warlock or Sorcerer. You need an in-game story-driven reason like a teacher or an opportunity to start learning the disciplines of a new class. There will also be a certain amount of common sense attached to this, meaning that if you are a Cleric of a given entity and you want to enter a contract as a Warlock with an opposing entity then you may find yourself with penalties moving forward to include losing your aforementioned Cleric status. Consult the DM when moving forward with planned multi-class options.
Crafting Rules. This world has optional crafting rules for those that want to engage with their toolsets. They can be found in the Tool Sets article and are meant to give characters expanded options for their toolsets and make them feel like a more useful part of the character in certain situations.
Pets, Mounts, Familiars. These appear in almost all games but I want to be upfront about Pets for people that want to just use them as fun aspects of their characters. When you create a character and when we start the game you need to decide and communicate if your pet is "Combat Enabled," meaning that it can take actions in combat and subsequently be killed by enemies. This should also be communicated for mounts and will be discussed in session zero of all campaigns as to whether you want them as an aspect of storytelling or if you intend to engage in mounted combat. Lastly, Familiars will always be combat enabled because they can simply be summoned back to the world through the use of magic, all standard rules for what they can and cannot do apply.
Common Sense. Social encounters are not navigated purely through rolls and one good roll does not decide the outcome of a social encounter, it will always be in context. Things should make sense, some NPCs will be smarter or have goals or biases or reasons to distrust or dislike you that are their own. A natural 20 here does not immediately deceive someone, rather think of social encounters as a sliding scale that you have the ability to impact and move through repeated or meaningful interactions. Generally, you should expect to have to roleplay or explain what you want to communicate and then roll when your interaction brings an opportunity to "influence" the decision of an NPC.
Explain your ideas. If you would like to use your abilities, your spells, your weapons in a way that seems realistic or makes sense to you then the only limitation is usually what you can explain. Characters have diverse abilities, knowledge, experiences, backgrounds, and more that could create an interesting situation that will always be welcomed as long as you can explain it in a reasonable way.
Enemies are not stupid. Enemies will behave tactically in this game, they will use cover and organize themselves as is reasonable given their intellect scores and cultural responses. There will also be enemies that do not appear as they do in the base game, enemies with player classes, and additional or special skills if they command forces. Expect the same from guards and the forces of good as well, they will have reasonable responses and act appropriately in situations if you cross them.