3.5

>3.5
>Tome of Battle
>Expanded Psionics Handbook
>Magic of Incarnum

>Clerics banned along with all PHB classes

What should religion look like in this campaign?

Well in terms of mechanically supported divine casters I think that leaves paladins, favored souls, spirit shaman, and maybe adept (I remember it's wis based, but don't remember the actual nature of their spells). There's also crusaders I guess who have "divine inspiration"

I'd say the most important priestly types just probably don't go into dungeons as much, but otherwise it's probably not that different

Paladins are banned along with clerics all the PHB classes. Crusaders take their stuff.
Favored souls, spirit shamans, and adepts are not among classes allowed either; only the classes in the three books listed are permitted.

You forgot the most important question, what are the gods like and what do they do? If they don't interact with the world at all, it wont look much dissimilar to religion in the real world.

Ah. Since no class gets magic from their god, I imagine that religion would resemble real-life religions. Lots of diversity in doctrine, an abundance of heresies. People would still believe in gods and the supernatural, but lacking things like Commune, nearly everyone's idea of god depends on hearsay.

>Tome of battle, incarnum and psionics
Literally Ayurvedic Hinduism. Lots of 'holy men' running around.

If dieties exist, you know that some will be saying that they make the rain happen.

There are Rakshasa, after all.

Zuoken has kind of Taoist feel to me though. Psionics to me kind of reads as a sort of "Science of the Mind" as religion with deified warrior-philosophers. Very East-Asian feel reminiscent of Buddhism, Taosim, and maybe a bit of Confucianism.

Meldshaping reads as more shamanistic, with totemists channeling nature spirits and incarnates channeling ancestral spirits maybe?

What about PHBII?

In anycase, I've never understood the rationale of a Cleric going on an adventure with a bunch of murderhobos unless it was for Church related business.

I could see a party of consiting of people who are all members of the same religion/creed adventuring together making sense but then I suppose you have the Frair Tucks of the world (But then if Gods are active in the affairs of humanity wouldn't that mean the Gods favored Robin Hood's actions?)

Eh, you're going to have to sell me on PHBII.
I know there are some good feats in there (with many pertaining to making sword & board more balanced) and there's the beguilers.
I'll take the feats, but I prefer a flat "no arcane" in my campaigns.

That's a pretty attractive mindflayer you got there.

Here's another.

What the fuck is this horseshit fanart

...

Cult of the Overmind, a Force-Like divinity that dreams all that exists and whose "Memory" is Incarnum.
Also congratulation you balanced 3.5. Was that so hard?

Incarnum's one main weakness is that it's too linked to the aligment system. Some Idea on how to free it?

You have an issue with beguilers because arcane, but the significantly more campaign damaging psion is fine?

Why are you banning classes based purely on power source instead of based on how disruptive they are?

You would have to sell me on allowing you to run at all

Psion is substantially less campaign damaging than beguiler particulary If you adapt 3.0 psion that was M.A.D. as fuck.

> but the significantly more campaign damaging psion is fine?

Psions are only campaign damaging with psychic reformation allowed.

>Why are you banning classes based purely on power source
Maybe that's the world he wants to build?

There is an entire chapter in the dmg that tells you to think long and hard before banning something because of a campaign setting.

To the point they mangled all settings assigned to 3.5 to allow them to have everything in the books.

.5
>>Tome of Battle
>>Expanded Psionics Handbook
>>Magic of Incarnum
>>Clerics banned along with all PHB classes

But why?

>To the point they mangled all settings assigned to 3.5 to allow them to have everything in the books.
99% sure that's so they can sell more books.
>There is an entire chapter in the dmg that tells you to think long and hard before banning something because of a campaign setting.
I'll look this up, but in the internim care to explain that reasoning beyond "player has to bench generic Paladin of St.Cuthbert #9 for a bit"

>Incarnum
FUCKING WHY

Because the class options and mechanics in those books are some of the most fun and balanced things to ever come out of post 2e D&D.

They make 3.5 actually somewhat enjoyable to play.

The DMG was written before the number of PC classes increased to such a level that you could ban an entire power source and still have pretty much everything covered.

>To the point they mangled all settings assigned to 3.5 to allow them to have everything in the books.

That should about tell you about the competence of 3.5 writers.

Except we're talking about 3.5, not adapted homebrewed 3.0 garbage. Psion can do essentially everything beguiler can, plus a load of things beguiler can't. Because beguiler is just a wizard with 4 banned schools.

They're tier 2, which puts them a full tier above everything else in OPs list. If the party's most versatile caster is a psion, the psion becomes the campaign warper, even if they are easier to hold down than a wizard or cleric would be.

>There is an entire chapter in the dmg that tells you to think long and hard before banning something because of a campaign setting.
And it's a stupid paragraph written by the same stupid people who tought the druid was balanced.
Allmost everything in the 3 allowed manuals is roughly on equivalent footing with everything else. A modicum of homebrew would fix the few outliners. Confront with Caster Edition.

>garbage
Cease to exist.

>hey're tier 2, which puts them a full tier above everything else in OPs list. If the party's most versatile caster is a psion, the psion becomes the campaign warper, even if they are easier to hold down than a wizard or cleric would be.
That's not what tiers mean. Classes of different tiers work fine if they're within 1 tier of each other. I'm not familiar with Magic of Incarnum but all of the Tome of Battle classes are Tier 3.

Because it's the fucking coolest concept wotc ever shat on for editorial reasons. Make some homebrew classes that don't need alignment-magic and it's the Shit.

It's not the shit, it IS shit. Incarnum was a fucking disgusting mistake and a blight on creativity. I curse the fool who let it escape his mind.

The fact that grognards didn't like it because it didn't follow their autismal tropes didn't make it bad. On the contrary it was the first actually original idea to enter DnD.

>I can't play a wizard? REEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
Go take a nap guys.

I don't even want to play a wizard, I just want to play something similar to ToB in power, like dread necro.

There's a lot of options for that in the three manuals permitted, without having to let you be the only arcane special snowflake in a world without real full casters.

>I don't even want to be a wizard
>but I totally want to be a wizard

Magic of Incarnum ranges from Tier 2 (Incarnate) to tier 5 (Soulborn). The Soulborn is worse than a Fighter who takes Incarnum feats: it is so bad.

>if it casts spells it's a wizard
Guess I really should just play psion then, since that's not a wizard.

Seeing as how psionics is not nearly as broken and imbalanced as the regular magic system, yes. Yes you should.

Dread Necro is a perfectly fine class, and makes a best of a bad system.

Unless Arcane classes were b& for lore reasons, there's no real reason to ban Dread Necro and I'M a HUGE Psionics fanboy.

Vancian casting itself is not the imbalance, it's the exact specific spells you have access to. That's why healer is worse than even adept, despite higher spell progression.

>No real reason to ban Dread Necro
>Full caster
>Powerful school
>Minions
>Unlimited free healing for minions
>Unlimited free healing for self with a feat
>No real reason to ban Dread Necro

Yeah okay.

>Because the class options and mechanics in those books are some of the most fun
Maybe.
>and balanced
Sure
>things to ever come out of post 2e D&D.
No. 3.x alone, but all post 2e? You overreach.
>They make 3.5 actually somewhat enjoyable to play.
Not even somewhat. Still a chore.

I eagerly awaited 4e's take on incarnum and the power source of the soul.

>Not even somewhat. Still a chore.
I'm sorry table top games aren't freeform enough for you.

And Psions are full manifesters, granted generally powers are much weaker than spells.
>Full Caster
Means nothing in and of itself. The Healer is a full caster and sucks dick. BROAD AS FUCK SPELLISTS are what breaks casters.
>powerful school
Tons of shit shits all over necromancy.

You can build anything out of legos. Doesn't mean I'd enjoy building everythng out of legos. It's a spectrum, not a dichotomy,

The incarnate class is too linked with the alignment system. Totemists are fine.

Yeah, if I'm doing a curated 3.5 experience with only selected materials allowed then obviously I'm going to ban particular things, such as Synchronicity.

>Psion can do essentially everything beguiler can
Then it's redundant. I don't want a gorillion different classes available in my campaign. It causes analysis paralysis. That's why I'm banning some.

There's a lot of disagreement on where Incarnates should be placed. Some say tier 2, some say low tier 3. Everybody is in agreement that Soulborn are tier 5 just as Soulknives from XPH are tier 5.

I have been considering Heroes of Horror, I just don't have a lot of experience with it. I know that it has rules for sanity and stuff (which might be useful if I also use Lords of Madness).
My concern is that the Dread Necromancer will be redundant with the Incarnate; Incarnates are really good at necromancy.

Hmmm... I see that Heroes of Horror features not only the dread necromancer, but also the archivist. What tier is that in?

Oh, Archivists are tier 1? Banned then.

Part of the problem here is that I know my players. If I hand them a book to use they are going to want to use EVERYTHING in that book. I can get away with crossing out feats and spells here and there but for some weird irrational reason the players will argue with me if I try to ban a class that they are looking at. I have to ban the entire book altogether.

Archivist is Tier 1. It's essentially a divine Wizard.

>redundant
And yet you're fine with warblade, religious warblade, and better warblade all in the same book?

Yeah, see, I don't really want this in my campaign.

I kind of like this guy's idea:
Therefore, all divine casters are out (and tier 1 casters are definitely out.)

The problem here is what to do about arcane casters. I don't want them because I'm trying to do a curated experience here, and I don't care if people on these boards want them, but my players might ask about them. I have to figure out a satisfactory answer for them.

>I have to figure out a satisfactory answer for them.
Eihter provide an in setting reason for not allowing them or just say straight up "I want to show off 3.5's other subsystems, so every ones playing with a class that uses a later subsystem"

"Sword magic", "Mind Science" and "Spirit Consciousness" are the three ways to power you can walk in this world, by the Creator's Project. Anyone that doesn't walk one of these paths is doomed to be a paesant

>beholder in a space suit
>space suits in D&D
y tho.

It doesn't need one, it's gravity plane will steal part of the atmosphere on it's way out.

Beyond that, those eye tubes clearly obstruct it's range of motions, which is silly.
Space-bound beholders normally get unrestricted eye use from their improved range of motion.

Same. I'm honestly considering trying to homebrew something up along that line for my upcoming 4e campaign, especially considering how heavily linked astral stuff is to the soul in 4e.

Some places in the abyss have no air to breath along with one of the throw back "modules" had rad filled space ships.

It just straight up doesn't exist. Giving a reason why it doesn't exist in setting other then that would set up a situation where you believe that it could come back or implied it was there and then suddenly isn't.

So just say "It doesn't" and treat everything else as usual. You still have your "wizards" and "sorcerer's and "witchs" but rather then being classes they are just names given to people by various groups or individuals.

Got it. Players should understand. They can be knuckleheads sometimes, but they usually understand when I explain things logically.

Okay, so some ideas for my campaign's setting:

Incarnates and Totemists are regarded as shamans as sorts; Totemists channel nature spirits, and Incarnates channel ancestral spirits.

Psionics, "The Science of the Mind", is kind of a non-theistic religion in the setting.

Some gods are worshipped in little shrines, but they have no clerics.

Obad-hai is depicted as a caveman playing a flute. Shopkeepers keep little statues of him on their counter-tops; he's as common as those little waving cat statues you see in Japan and Taiwan.

Farlan is depicted as a cloaked old man holding a map. Little sculptures of him are found on street signs and street lamps.

Shrines of Zuoken are found in every psionic temple.

The Devoted Spirit fighting school has a shrine of Pelor, but they consider him to be more of a deified hero than an actual god. Same with Kord and the Stone Dragon school and St. Cuthbert and the White Raven school.