Please help with questions about FG and high level D&D 3.5 Campaign

[Pdelski]

I'm trying to run a high level campaign for a friend of mine who is in the Navy, along with a one other player who lives at home with me. We are trying to transfer our face to face paper game to FG. I have some experience with Fantasy grounds playing a low level character in a D&D 5e game with another friend, but no experience with FG using the D&D 3.5 rules set. I have DMed many games in the past in 3.5, including ones this complex and on paper things are fine, but trying to learn FG as a DM for 3.5 seems a bit more involved, which I am ready to deal with, than playing a D&D 5e character. I have the ultimate license, complete SRD, advanced bestiary for templates, and summoned monsters MODS.

I have watched several videos and get the basics, but I have several high level characters in my story that I'm not sure how the best way to enter them into FG would be. We are using a variety of books, more than just the core programmed into fantasy grounds. It's a horror based war campaign. I won't list them all but some of them are Libris Mortis, Book of Vile Darkness, Book of Exalted deeds, Heroes of Horror, Heroes of battle, Epic level handbook, Draconomicon, etc.

I know this may sound crazy, but there is one NPC (personality) character that is vital to the plot who rules a city and army of undead, who is allied with the players against other undead and various enemies in the story. This NPC is a Human/Lich/Spellstitched/Evolved undead with multiclass Cleric20/Sorceror8/TrueNecromancer14.

I'm trying to figure out if it would be more efficient to control such a character if created as a PC controlled by the DM, or as an NPC. I don't think I can apply templates to a PC character like an NPC, but if there is a way I would love to know how. I do have one player who is a Half celestial/Wood elf cleric5/Purifier of the Hallowed Doctrine8, with a cohort that is a Half celestial/wood elf cleric5/combat medic2/Radiant Servant of Pelor2 ,so I need to figure out how to apply the half celestial template for them. The other player is a Human Druid7/Dracolyte10 with a young adult red dragon cohort, which was modified from the basic monster entry. The druid was able to acquire Dracolyte through taint. BTW, this druid character believes he is really a dragon that can shapechange into a human druid, and not the other way around, for comical effect. He explains not being able to do so at earlier levels by claiming he was cursed. So I also need to figure out the best way to represent his dragon form.

I thought about putting the template information in the abilities and notes tabs for PC characters. I also thought about creating class levels templates that can be put on NPCs, but don't know if that is an efficient way to do it, knowing that most classes have 20 levels, times the number of different possible classes, that can be over a hundred different individual templates I would have to potentially make, but once made can be applied in seconds. I will have several NPCs with PC class levels, so I'm trying to find the best way to add PC levels to NPCs for that reason too. For the lich character, he has feats such as leadership, undead leadership, extra followers and epic leadership, so will have a large army to track. I think it would be easier to track all this on a PC sheet rather than an NPC sheet, but I don't know yet. As his army looses or gains members, I would like to be able to track it as easily as possible.

We will also be using Taint rules for corruption and depravity from Heroes of Horror, Corrupt acts with corruption and Obeisance points from the Fiendish codexes, as well as commander ratings and recognition points from Heroes of battle.

I also was thinking about the problem of possibly having several dozen, or even 100+ npcs in one battle, in unit formations. I think it may be easier to have a block of NPCs represented as one large block icon on the map and one shared stat block, so a unit of 40 peasants could be 40 hp, or a block of something stronger like 25 level 1 warriors could be 50 HP, or 2 hp per individual, and scale up as appropriate for stronger and higher level units.

I know this may seem like a lot to ask at once, so thank you all for any help you can offer.

[damned]

Welcome Pdelski

You wont have fun with 100npcs in the tracker - definitely work on some sort of Unit grouping/entity.
If you want more advanced control/features for your NPCs then the PC sheet is the way to go - especially if they will engage in Combat. Youw ill have to run their attacks from their Char Sheet though - whereas NPCs can be fully run from the Combat Tracker...
Specifics about 3.5e... I dont know...




https://www.fg-con.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/fgcon9-sig9.jpg (https://www.fg-con.com/events/)
FG Con 9 – Fantasy Grounds Online RPG Convention - October 14-16 2016
Register at www.fg-con.com (https://www.fg-con.com/) for all the latest info.

[kalmarjan]

First off, to start... Congrats on DMing this far into 3.5. You're at a point where not a lot of groups got to because of how complex the game got. (I have every one of those splat books you mention, but half have never even been cracked open... Who has the time?)

As a person who ran combat in 3.5 with FG back in the day (with heavy help from DMGenie) my advice is to simplify. In the end, all you need to do is set your mooks up as one-hit wonders who are nothing more than speed bumps so your BBEG can control the battle and layout, right? For those mooks? I'd put an entry in the combat tracker, and move all of them, attack at once, and not even keep track of their hit points, because honestly, they don't even matter. One fell swoop and BOOM! They're done anyway.

Once you get to the upper levels of 3.5, it's a point of diminishing returns. It's almost better the way we had it back then, where there wasn't as much automation because there was far less chance that anyone would use it all.

In the end, what is it your bad guy is trying to do? What's his goal for the combat? Come up with his stats and simplify his sheet. You don't want all that complexity there, because honestly, your job is running the combat and proving enjoyment to your players, not book keeping, right?

Better still, focus on giving each of your players the chance to utilize their combat abilities and really shine, while engaging them enough to have them cursing your good name. There comes a point where you need to let go of RAW a bit and focus on the fun!

Edit: Was looking through some stuff... here's what I'd do...

take this line here...


Soldiers, human Ftr3 (30): Medium Human; CR 3; HD 3d10+3; hp 20; Init +5; Spd...

now, instead of 30 (30!!!) different guys and gals, why not just make it a single stupid-huge 400-600 HP creature. Something they can defeat with their brains and brawn, but one less headache for you. Then, just weave in each of their hits into the story like they are fighting a horde. So, they do 50 damage in an attack? Call it the player attacking carving out crowds of men. In one attack, he killed 2! That's like, WOW! Second attack! Maybe he crits... kills a full third in one swoop, bodies flying everywhere!


Horde (30) of human Ftr3 Soldiers: GarGarguantuan (15 squares, can surround enemies with no penalty) CR 30; HD 30d10+30; hp 550; Init +30; Spd...etc...

In the end, player feels like a badass, while you just roll for the attack, and describe it back the same way. Monster deals 60 damage? Around 10 swarm the player and each score a hit that you tell the players total 60. It's dangerous for the character, yes, but for sure another player wading in will make the damage that much greater. The players are supposed to be the badasses here... so let them feel like it... They'll get hurt, but they will hurt a lot of enemies too. :)

That's what saved my sanity, and we still played an awesome game!

[Pdelski]

Thank you, Damned, and Kalmarjan for your replies.

I feel like both of you got a good feel for what I'm talking about and are in the same ballpark for what I'm thinking. I feel like a bit more background may shed some light on our situation. The game I'm trying to run here is for my friend who went away to the Navy and for my wife, as well as myself, DM gets to have fun too of course!

The three of us have played in several D&D games across multiple DMs, some that lasted for years and never finished, or ended with low to mid level characters. Some of our other friends had similar experiences. We all plan characters speculating how awesome they will be in the future at high level and never got there, and every new campaign we played in with the intention of getting to those high levels. Real life always got in the way, people moved away, jobs demanded more time, and some of us started families.

We started talking and decided that we have experienced the low to mid level games enough, and with being busier as we got older, taking 2 or 3 years to get to mid level seemed to long, so why not start a higher level character and cut to the chase, get to those higher levels we were dreaming of sooner.

I feel as a DM, I have learned a lot over the years, and have a lot more to learn, but some of the most important things I learned about DMing were that following the golden rule takes you far, and saying yes to the player as often as possible, within reason, creates more fun for everyone. I try to adapt to player choices, and avoid railroading them as much as possible, and manage this by offering a multiple path choice to players frequently, some that tie back to other options, so I can recycle planned content that may be otherwise unused. Sorry, bit of a tangent.

Anyway, we started talking about this campaign a few years ago and it hasn't really had a chance to take off yet because our friend moved away and we weren't aware of virtual tabletops at first, then when we discovered them, couldn't afford them at the time. After doing some research and saving of money, I decided on Fantasy grounds because I felt that it was a very strong choice for a DM to organize and track almost everything that a DM could dream of.

We are pretty much at the start of our campaign and can do just about anything we want, not much has been set in stone so I can modify much of the game to adjust for some of the more complex rules that 3.5 has to offer, or at least prepare to track them manually. I have grown to love the possibilities that 3.5 has created for undead creatures and characters, as well as the flexibility between monster races and PC classes, and how interchangeable they are. My favorite thing about it is that the rules for both PCs and NPCs are almost exactly the same, except for a few details.

The Lich NPC I mentioned was actually a PC from an older game I played, and advanced time and his levels to create a new story, So I get to control an undead army that I always dreamed of. My Wife on the other hand, really enjoys anti-undead characters and also enjoys support characters. Our Navy friend however, has always loved everything about dragons, he wants to be one, control them, summon them, and ultimately as he puts it "break religion" and find a way to unite all dragonkind.

After I read the Heroes of Battle book, it was about having large scale battles and dealing with armies, very much the opposite of traditional D&D encounters. We discussed it and said, lets give it a shot, but still have a mix with traditional encounters as well. The three of us are all fans of Warhammer, both fantasy and 40K, so we thought why not inject some of that into our game. However the Heroes of Battle book does go over how to handle large scale battles.

One of the things it suggested was simplifying things and approximating things. So a unit of 20 level 1 warriors isn't 20 individual warriors, but one 5x4 sized warrior. Since they all have identical stats, the whole unit rolls the same thing, and HP replaces unit size. The book basically says many low level npcs led by few higher level npcs is whats common, and most low level NPCs had so few hit points that they would either die after one blow, or fake death or retreat if they survived a hit. So if a unit of 20 warriors attacks a unit of 40 goblins, and they are both 5 troops wide, instead of rolling 1d20 like traditional 1 vs. 1 you would roll 5d20, or possibly 10d20 if they had reach weapons and the second rank could hit the enemy unit as well and subtract that many HP, or soldiers, from the target unit. Lets say out of 5d20 2 hit. The unit is attacking with short swords, so 2d6 damage, and roll a 5, the enemy unit goes down by 5 troops. Again, this isn't 100% accurate, but an approximation, I have to re-read the book.
I could have 100 npcs in 5 blocks of 20 and represent that as 5 npcs on the combat tracker rather than 100 npcs. There are also morale rules, so enemy units may retreat if they witness too much loss for their side.

Being high level characters lets the players feel more powerful and epic in a war setting because they can survive better than most, and use powerful spells to potentially wipe out entire units at once if they are weak. However there will be stronger enemy units to spice things up as well. Our dragon player was excited at the possibility of taking out vast swaths of enemy units with his fire breath. Ultimately, we are trying to work together so I can give the players what they want, and allow me to have my fun too.

I will try the suggestion to put the Lich stats on a PC sheet, I think that will work better as Damned suggested. As far as PC class levels on NPCs goes, I don't plan on creating all the possible PC levels as templates at once, I think that would be inefficient. I think I will just create a template as I need it and save it incase I need another level x of class y on an npc.

Again thank you all for taking the time to read this and providing suggestions. The interaction here has already helped me to organize my thoughts and plan ahead.

Also I noticed that I received emails when I got a reply to this thread. Thank you to whoever is responsible for making this feature possible, it is very much appreciated.

[Pdelski]

Kalmarjan, you beat me to the punch, once again, I feel like we are thinking alike. Thank you for taking the time to update your post with the new info. You just said it in a simpler faster fashion.

[kalmarjan]

Awesome. I'd love to hear how the final battle goes. Sounds epic!