Planescape!

A long time ago. I've nearly forgotten.

oh, and i did blog about it at the time. it wasn't anything substantial, mostly just recording what happened.

...

...

...

That is awesome! Would love to see the conversion, though I think a part of the magic of Planescape for me comes from the absurdity of 2e, though. Does that make sense? I usually run my games as a wacky 2e "as is" game and let the setting support it.

In my longest 1½ year long campaign the characters would come to their senses in the Gatehouse, escaping and slowly realizing they were a part of a secretive organization. Chargen was 3d6 in order, down the line, then see what you qualify for. If your character dies, the rest of the group might resurrect you, might not. You roll a new character, escape the Gatehouse and get introduced to the PCs who will explain their version of the story so far.

They got jumped by a doomguard hit squad around ~20k XP, the whole party except the tiefling fighter/rogue died. When the new characters rolled in, the tiefling had nobody to answer to, so he explained the situation as his character being the leader of the organization and the PCs working under him. When they discovered that he had lied, the enchanter was identifying a magic ring for him. It was a ring of apathy, but the enchanter said it's a ring of resistance.

>The curse upon this ring becomes apparent only when it is tried on, and the ring only can be removed by means normally used to rid oneself of a cursed item. The wearer becomes listless and can make no decisions, offers no opinions, and generally must reply to all questions with expressions of ennui such as "I don't care," "It doesn't matter," "It's all the same to me," and similar dis- heartening statements. There is a 10% chance that, if attacked, the character won't even raise a hand in his or her own defence.

They ousted him very quickly and he ended up joining the Dustmen, unable to muster the interest and decisiveness to get his curse broken.

...

What are the strongest builds/classes/combinations in 2e?

your very right about how Planescape reflects 2E nicely. Planescape is D&D at the edge, after all.

the 5E conversion documents actually helped me make the transition. the three pillars model and inspiration mechanic helps a lot with manifesting the core ideas of planescape (e.g. strange experiences, power of belief). also the general reality of having to play with other people that don't really want to play 2E.

also my proofreading is terrible.

...

...

...

I recall seeing an aasimar random ability and appearance chart, does anyone remember what book it is from?

...

Thought about running a 5e game out of The Ditch recently. Couldn't find much good adventure inspiration tho.

...

How much in these threads is still valid?

docs.google.com/document/d/1EC4fQ7qW0dNveXRDD2UZsB2NXbyIpEm-jCtTjwBQH3I/edit

i've used the Ditch as a site for a portal. Waste from a coolant factory in the Lower Ward. Walking up in to it (with a key) was a portal to Cania, the 8th layer of Baator.

i remember somewhere that that illustration was for an adventure, but i can't remember what it was called or where it was hosted.

From what I remember if 2nd ed, it was less about optimal builds and more about just picking whichever class/kit seemed most interesting and was allowed based on your stats and race. Unless the player rolled shit for stats most everything would end up working just fine.

...

Rolled 1, 2, 3, 2, 5, 2, 5, 4, 4, 3, 4, 5, 1, 2, 5, 2, 6, 6 = 62 (18d6)

Let's stat a character!

Str 6, Dex 9, Con 13, Int 12, Wis 8, Cha 14.

Planar races we qualify for; Genasi (Air), Genasi (Fire), Genasi (Water), Githzerai, Tiefling.

What do you guys think? Str 5 and Tiefling to score that Cha 15 and open up some extra classes?

Got a campaign going on even now. Not Planescape, but still.

Still the best system.

What do you like about it? Top three things?

Not an adventure, location supplement for...Dragon magazine?

just read a first semester philosophy textbook

it'll be more stimulating than anything that setting has to offer

In no particular order:
A wide number of options and possibilities, without neither the character-build mentality or indeed very many ways to break the game at all, nor bogging down the gameplay itself with extraneous bullshit.
Capable of both old-school lethal dungeon crawl and story-based epic adventure.
Ease of implementation of about four different D&D editions and a wide variety of OSR retroclones, combining both the old and the new without much difficulty at all.

I suppose, to put it in short, 2e is the transition between the old and the new. It sits in the middle and grants me best of both worlds. It's pretty great.

Modularity; since it's a jumble of subsystems I can remove, swap, replace, etc., without TOO much headache.

Support; Early 2e was the glorious liminal stage between contextless hexcrawls and overwrought narration leading to a shitload of excellent material I don't feel goofy running.

This is probably an unpopular opinion but class mechanics; Differential xp kept your characters different, out-of-box strategized (I don't need the book to tell me I'm a protector because if the rogue or the mage take it in the face, they're obviously fucked), in balance not through equity of abilities but through differentiation of ability access, and inbuilt stuff that would otherwise only be accessible via dm fiat or feats in other editions (fighter stronghold, thieves guild, etc.).

>This is probably an unpopular opinion

If it is, then I shall be unpopular with you: 2e classes being strictly different and having their own roles in battle is also one of the better things of the system. Mixing them up, giving each class the same skills and adding a pile of alternate classes that could do so many of them at once, was kind of missing the point and muddled the whole matter in a way I wouldn't have wanted to.

There was a reason bard was originally an optional class, required such troubles to get to, and was stated to be overpowered and recommended to not be allowed at all.

What do you think about the 2e bard?

Warriors of Heaven I believe

I really enjoy 2e core not having rules for spot/perception checks. If you search for something, you tell the DM where you look for and he tells you what you find. It's somehow... really liberating.

2e bard isn't as bad as the 1e bard was, but he does still mix up thief and mage in a way that does pretty much exactly what I just complained about. I probably would've rid him of his spells and maybe instead given him some more social skills and such.

On the other hand, bard kits are some of the best in the game. Of all the class customization only specialist priests are as fun in my book.

Good to hear another like minded user.

9/10ths of 3.x's "balance" problems could be solved with different XP tables per class so the amount of XP it takes to be a late 10th level fighter is the same as an early 7th level wizard but I guess kids can't cope with someone having a bigger number on their character sheet than them.

They're pretty damn good, honestly. Songs are nice, but their ability to mix thief abilities, magic, and potentially elf mail together is a solid combination for a great all-around hero. Fighter/Bard aasimar is one of my fav multiclass

Running a ps game for a couple months now. Started on the plane of Earth, a couple planars on their way to do some faction business on the plane. A couple new players joined as primes, unluckily ending up in the Anvil.. but the party helped out like a couple lemons. It's gone great since then, despite most of them never having played 2e before.

Can you take a bard kit as a multiclass aasimar?

The bard handbook has rules for bard multiclasses, including kits. It doesn't have any crossover with Planescape, nothing included about aasimars or genasi or whatnot, but the groundwork is there: all you need to do is to expand the races.

You can always take a kit as a multiclass, unless specifically barred.

Can you take a kit to both (or all three of) your multiclasses? The rules state that you can only have one kit for a class - but does it mean one kit per class, or one kit total?

One kit, period.you can abandon kits, later, though.

Where are the generic kit rules? Complete Warrior keeps saying "if you want to be dualclass amazon, maybe be a girl from a warrior culture! No kit 4 u!"

They're kind of spread everywhere. Biggest drawback of 2e: dogshit indexing.

What's everyone's favorite faction? Some are tough to run/play as anything other than dickhead spazzes, like the Doomguard, Xaositects, or Fated.. others are harder from a philosophy side, like Dustmen, Bleakers, or Anarchists.

>What's everyone's favorite faction?

I like them all, but if I had to pick one to belong to, I'd probably go with Bleak Cabal or Athar.

Even the kit is specifically bard?

Doomguard, Fated, Signers. Really love the Signer faction ability.

I am a fan of the Society of Sensation as well, but primarily for their recorder/sensory stones, which are arguably among the top three most advanced pieces of "technology" available in the setting. Such devices are usually the province of futuristic or sci-fi settings, and yet here they are in an allegedly "medieval" (as "Sigil and Beyond" claims) fantasy setting.

Recorder/sensory stones have such titanic ramifications on society, and it is a disappointment how such consequences are downplayed in the setting books. With a little work, these tools could single-handedly push the Great Wheel into the information age, if not beyond that; the stones are in many ways more advanced than any video-recording technology in our world, as they capture all sensory and emotional information and can dredge up anything a person has experienced.

It is easy to see why "the Sensates are by far the richest faction in the Cage" (as per page 140 of the "Factol's Manifesto") and their factol is one of the two most politically powerful persons in Sigil (according to pages 70-71 of "Sigil and Beyond"): the recorder/sensory stones make them the foremost custodians of entertainment, education, and data alike.

Do you post this pasta every time someone asks?

A kit is a kit. I can't find where it limited kits, but I'd limit it myself even if it allowed multiples, especially for the better ones like planeswalker kits.

people.wku.edu/charles.plemons/ad&d/races/class.html

I found this, lists "Fiendish Spellcasters" and their max levels they can attain. Where are these from? There's no source, but all of the others entries seem to be sourced or from actual products. Would be awesome to have some crazier characters in my Planescape games.

Might be from Faces of Evil. They aren't intended as PC races but you do you.

I didn't find it from Faces of Evil, though it seemed the logical place to look.

Ended up reading on Council of Wyrms after seeing . Does anyone have thoughts on that setting?

It's cool, I like the idea of the wyrms not being able to do everything they want, because they have to rest for so long after they do much of anything.. thus they have special agents that act on their behalf.
That, and DRACONIC POETRY!

Do you think you could run young dragon PCs alongside normal cutters in Planescape?

You can do anything you want. I wouldn't really be a fan of it, as a player and GM, from an inter-party perspective. One guy's a human, the other's a DRAGON. Not really very fair! Another concern is that, while Sigil itself is metropolitan, dragons are literally MADE of valuable materials.. a good way to get kidnapped and cut apart by greedy mages.

Now, what I do like, is the giants from the FR book Giantcraft: Verbeeg, firbolg, and.. I think voadkyn? Their level caps are VERY low for non-fighter (mostly), and even fighter's cap is pretty low. Level caps don't come up often, but when it's level 5 or less, it's almost baseline!

With a bit of crunching, it seems like the Dragon XP requirements for most things would put them on par most other PCs. A young lv 3 crystal dragon (mage kit) requires 125k xp and casts 2/2/1 spells per day as a lv 7 wizard and has 6 HD with a wizard's thac0. A 130k wizard casts 4/3/3/2/1 as a level 9 caster with a lv 9 wizard thac0. You get a breath weapon 3/day, wings, claws that punch through +2 magical weapon requirement and charm person at-will out of that exchange.The dragon's next level is at 500k, which is a 11th level caster for the mortal.

I guess in a world of millions and millions of XP, the dragon ends up being stronger at the very end. But not in any average game that doesn't hit legendary levels.

never had a chance tp play 2e before, but today i found a trio of used 2e campaign boxes (Planescape, Ravenloft, and.something for Mystara). hoping to crack those open and get a group together for something. it looked like the prior owner left some handwritten notes and maps, too, which should prove interesting.

Well, there's also innate AC, magic resistance, breath weapons, flight, and sheer intimidation factor compared to most any other possible species (most demons and angels included).

And like I said before, dragons are priority targets to any mage in need of some scales, blood, bones, or what have you.

Balance wise, it's probably fine still but I personally wouldn't allow it, even in Planescape. The strange and wonderous nature of the planes is lost when the majority of the party are just as wacky - I prefer the party to be mostly human, in other words, with a single modron or tiefling. The planes aren't exactly so intimidating or odd when you have a dragon, cornugon, modron, bariaur, and eladrin all bopping about together.

Holy shit, do you KNOW how much those go for? Planescape in particular goes for outrageous amounts if it's the full campaign setting box.

Why is this thread so less severely autistic than usual? Holy shit is the difference noticeable.

Played PS using PF that a friend DMed, it was surprisingly intuitive and not imbalanced at all. Mainly because we didn't cheese it and tried to immerse ourselves using the cant.

>Mainly because we didn't cheese it
Really this is the key for any game.
The second it becomes about 'lolwinning' all systems break, hard.

How exactly does one make magical items or scrolls in 2e?

frontiernet.net/~jamesstarlight/MakingMagic.html#ITEM 2

You need to be 18 or older to be on Veeky Forums.

Faggot.

GM fiat. There's some suggestions on methods, and very basic "you can make scrolls and potions at about level 9", but beyond that there's the Permanency and Enchant an Item spells which are both level 6. However, those are just 1 way, a very punitive way since it drains con permanently.
GM can (and should) require a lengthy quest for materials and the information on methodology. That, and they might need to work at EXACTLY the right time and place. For instance: crafting some mighty weapon might require steel which has been refined 99 times in the blood of royalty, one of each of 99 generations. It must be worked atop the tallest spies of the pillars of the storms, during the height of the centennial storm giant migration. It's final forging must be completed by a bolt of lightning, natural or otherwise.

Just an example. All magic items, whether boring +1 or otherwise, should require SOME effort to make if you want total freedom in making it. Other than that, the GM provides.

It was balanced. No class reigned over the others.

In my opinion though, a psionic that rolled well, could fuck shit up at lower levels. Then they'd even out.
Wizards were squishy and fragile as hell, until much higher levels, and even then, they were in danger if anything got to melee on them.
Pallys rocked, but we're so fucking rare without cheating at dice.
Rogues were fun as hell, and constant at high and low levels.
Clerics were ok from start to finish.
Fighters were about the same.
Rangers were like rogues.
Monks were..meh to ok.

Late to the party, but i seriously recommend this adventure for anyone pretending to introduce their 5e group to Planescape. It's really good. dmsguild.com/product/173611/A-Boy-and-his-Modron

dunno if its the full box, very well could be. i got each of em for 10USD, so may well have struck gold. wouldnt have thought to check that, thabks user.

Personally, the complete bards handbook gave good kits for bards. Swashbuckler springs to mind. A core bard? They were an ok thief and an ok mage. But not as good at either as the true class.

Not as many 4&5e faggots here. That lowers the amount of spurging

A fighter specializing in martial arts would kick more ass than a monk (which is a kit most of the time anyways)
Rangers are great at what they do: dual wield, track, and have a bit of nature magic at high level. Equitable to the fighter and paladin.
Wizards are very limited in spells per day, squishy, and have the worst saves in the game. The power of their spells is good, but enemies get save dc equal to fighter, usually, which is pretty good. Enough so that any spell granting a save will easily be passed at high level, not to mention most high level threats ALSO having magic and/or magic resistance.
Priests are good, though it depends on what kind you use, and if you count specialty priests as the same thing. There's not really a 'priest' class, honestly, save a VERY generic 'cleric', and the ever powerful druid.
Thieves are OK. Not too great at fighting, but with clever use of their skills and great saving throws, they shouldn't need to fight too often. At least.. not fight FAIR.
Bards are marvelous jacks-of-all-trades. Only drawback is they are as good at fighting as a thief, which is to say not very good.
Psions can suck my dick. Nobody can deal with them but other psions, and psionics is even more needlessly complicated than anything else in 2e, which is saying a lot. Basically just wizards, only moreso.

A single-classed fighter (so they can Specialize and have more HP) and priest are the two most important components of a healthy party. One to soak/dish out damage, one to heal up after it all. Without them, any real fight will get bloody VERY quickly!

It says where it's from right at the bottom of the picture. 'Of Sigil and the Sea', Polyhedron #137.

Check on it. There's some fucking obscene prices on Amazon, up to 4k. More realistic is still 200 bucks.

C'mon pally

Would love to know what the odds of rolling a Cavalier Paladin with 3d6 down the line are.

>Psions can suck my dick. Nobody can deal with them but other psions, and psionics is even more needlessly complicated than anything else in 2e, which is saying a lot.

Yeah...but fuck me, I loved them.
My dm, didn't. They were banned finally. Too difficult to use encounters on, without fucking up the nonpsions in the group.

Less than half a percent, I believe.

You should be using 4d6k3 arrange anyway, that's what all the tables are balanced around.

You mean lacking in 3.5e/PF shits.

Less than 1 out of hundreds of games.
I Know that from personal experience. Sadly. I wanted to try one so bad.

He means lacking in Touhoufag and Americans.

Just play Dark Sun, where EVERYTHING is psionic! The trees! The grass! The mosquitos! Then, when you're tired of having your brain melted and sucked out by the average potted plant of Athas, you disable it once more, because it was such a horrid mistake.

Tomatoe.. tomato

Darksun had a certain charm and feel. Not my thing tho. Couldn't get into it.

This is good.
Yeah. But 4e and 5e are good systems, not perfect but good systems and can easily run fine games in PS.

Bleak Cabal or Free League. Friend of mine would say Sensate and Godsman

I loved that shit.
The cloth map.

Goddamn.

>To complement their entertainment image as mysterious and fearsome men, Blades often dress in black garb, even going so far as to wear masks, facial wraps, or black headgear. Their weapons are always kept in perfect condition and highly polished for maximum effect during a performance. A man dressed in solid black, flashing gleaming silver blades, is truly an awesome sight.

Oh, 90s.

So currently I'm thinking about running an adventure of Planescape for level 7-8 characters that has to deal with Faction politics and the catastrophic consequences on planes outside Sigil of two Factions butting heads in the shadows. I have the outline drafted, but need some filler encounters in Sigil and the planes appropriate for ~80k XP characters who are a bit under-equipped for their level.