Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Cross-Edition D&D in Iron Canyons


The basic ideas for Iron Canyons arose from a design constraint I put on myself at the very beginning: No fighters, no Magic Users, no Clerics, and no Thieves.  I still wanted fantasy races, so there are Humans, Elves, Dwarves, and Skaven (which take the place of Halflings), but none of the class options available for any class are available for any other.   I also wanted to play with the idea that each race would have a (non-base) class option from each edition of D&D and would use the rules from their edition when resolving combat or other situations, just as has been done when incorporating characters from different games or editions in FLAILSNAILS games on G+.

So here is the current race/class options chart, subject to frequent revision as I flesh this out:

EditionHuman (C)Elf (E)Dwarf (L)Skaven (G)
OD&DZak's Random RangerOD&D ElfOD&D DwarfOD&D Halfling
AD&D 1EUnearthed Arcana BarbarianAD&D MonkOriental Adventures SamuraiAD&D Illusionist
AD&D 2EVikings Campaign BerserkerNecromancer Specialist MageVikings Campaign RunecasterDark Sun Trader?
D&D 3.5EDruid*HexbladeCrusader (Tome of Battle)?Scout
PathfinderCavalier (with flavor changes)WitchInquisitorBard
D&D 4EWarlord (with constraints*)Assassin (with constraints)Paladin (with constraints)Warden (with constraints)

*So, for the later editions where its all feat-trees and ability-combo building, I will probably highly constrain the choices so its more like the traditional "at-this-level-you-get-this" rather than "choose from these 15 things" to bring it a little more in line with the amount of variation available in older editions 

Humans may not be any kind of Lawful.
Elves may not be any kind of Good.
Dwarves may not be any kind of Chaotic.
Skaven may not be any kind of Evil.

 A lot of the choices in the above chart will make more sense as I explain the different cultures of the PC races.

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