# Our sci-fi adventure path



## Morrus

Now that the ink is dry on the license, I can now announce our upcoming sci-fi adventure path for D&D 4E: . This is based on the novel by Mike Resnick, a critically acclaimed and award-wining sci-fi author.

We'll have more details soon, and the official website will be launched very soon, also. It will be shorter than  or  (likely six adventures or so) and include a free intro pack introducing the new classes, etc. This is slated for Autumn 2011.

For those not familiar with Mike Resnick's work, think _Firefly_ meets Asimov's _Foundation_ series, with the action set on the Inner Frontier of the Democracy. Resnick has been nominated for 34 Hugo Awards -- a record for writers -- and won five times. 

See the announcement on Mike Resnick's website here.


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## Mallus

You guys licensed Resnick's Santiago: A Myth of the Far Future?!

Bravo, sir. Bravo and well done.

It's a fantastic novel, and a terrific backdrop for role-playing campaigns. The names alone are sheer genius, cf. Altair of Altair and the Jolly Swagman.


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## weem

Good job, grats


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## renau1g

Well done sir. I have ordered a copy of the book from Amazon having heard very good things from it.


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## Cergorach

Sorry guys, never heard of the property, never even heard of the writer (pretty sure I never read any of his work). Looks like you guys think it's a good series, so the writer will probably be decent as well (as if those awards would tell anything ;-), will look into the book series (so this adventure path might actually be good for marketing the books/writer), I really liked Firefly.

Why this particular property and not something 'new' in the same genre (space cowboys)? Is there really such a big crowd of Santiago fans on ENworld or just a fun project combined with an oppertunity (those are fun as well)?


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## Khairn

Outstanding!  One of my favorite sci-fi books and authors.  Looks like I'll be playing some 4E after all.


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## UnknownAtThisTime

Not being a big SCi Fi fan, I am not very familiar with Santiago, however, this announcement will probably make me more familiar with the series as well as the eventual AP.


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## malcolm_n

Looks like it'll be fun, in a  Star Wars meets Wyatt Earp (Kurt Russell, not Kevin Costner's mistake) kind of way.


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## Zinovia

Mike Resnick was the guest of honor a couple of years ago at COSine, the science fiction convention we run in Colorado Springs.  He's a cool guy and has tons of experience as a writer.  He practically invented the space cowboy idea, although he's far from the only one to have used the concept.

Congratulations on the license, it sounds like it will be a lot of fun!


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## DEFCON 1

Big fan of the first book, and just read _The Return of Santiago_ last summer, also a fun book.

I was also a fan of a cool anthology series he edited called Whatdunnits (a bunch of Sherlock Holmes-esque mystery short stories that were all sci-fi based.)


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## Morrus

I first read SANTIAGO back in - I think - the early 90s.  I've re-read it a few times since then, even loosely based a homebrew D&D campaign (a fantasy version of it) on it.  Structurally, it's ideally suited to an adventure path; it's going to be a lot of fun!


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## TerraDave

congrat guv. 

would love to see 4E meets space opera, or space western (or space spagheti western?)


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## malcolm_n

TerraDave said:


> congrat guv.
> 
> would love to see 4E meets space opera, or space western (or space spagheti western?)




Should do a Blazing Saddles AP next .  "We don't need no stinking skill challenges."


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## Khairn

If you need any playtesting done, I'd be happy to help out.


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## Morrus

The web page is now live! Go here and select SANTIAGO:

http:// www.enworld.org/ap/


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## Khairn

Web page looks great!  Although the Forum link didn't work for me.

Crazy idea.
Run a contest for those groups who post a journal of their games.  With the winning group members getting a stanza about their characters written by Black Orpheus.

Oh yeah ... just a little stoked about this.


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## Wednesday Boy

I was checking out the class previews and noticed that the Engineering  skill is based off of Wisdom while the Engineer's primary attribute is Intelligence.  Not to tell you your business but maybe switch one of them so they're aligned?  

I'd be disappointed if someone's Frontiersman was a better engineer than my Engineer.


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## Morrus

Wednesday Boy said:


> I was checking out the class previews and noticed that the Engineering skill is based off of Wisdom while the Engineer's primary attribute is Intelligence. Not to tell you your business but maybe switch one of them so they're aligned?
> 
> I'd be disappointed if someone's Frontiersman was a better engineer than my Engineer.




That's all just "concept" stuff - we haven't actually written anything yet.


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## Wednesday Boy

Morrus said:


> That's all just "concept" stuff - we haven't actually written anything yet.




D'oh!  I knew I should have trusted that you guys had it all covered!


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## ravenheart

Morrus said:


> That's all just "concept" stuff - we haven't actually written anything yet.




I hope you don't mind feedback on the "concept" stuff though? 'Cause I aswell have a few remarks coming to mind. These ideas may be contradictory to the tone or style of the setting as I haven't read Resnick's books myself, but I think they would be more "mechanically sound" IMHO.

1) Completely separate energy from credits. Make them less interchangeable (switching from one to the other can only be used in civilized and "friendly" locales) but use both as expendable resources (treasure if you like). 

Equipment, and maybe some software, could require energy to use. Storage units of various capacity (that you buy using credits) would be required to store energy. Some equipment might even be used to generate energy over time. 

2) Engineering seems to be too similar to Tech in my opinion. I guess Engineering is directly derived from Dungeoneering? Engineering seems to be the more physical equivalent of Tech (Wis-based, practical associations), and could there fore be associated with Hardware as Tech deals with software. 

Hardware could be more akin to what the artificer should/could've been, operating machinery and fixing equipment (direct), while software relates to hacking and making existing software better and more efficient (indirect).

3) Religion feels out of place as a skill in a sci-fi setting, where there are no "real" gods and other extraplanar creatures. There are, however, extraterrestrial creatures and an assortment of planetary/galactic cultures. So how does replacing Religion with something akin to Culture sound?

I'm making some assumptions of the setting here, and I apologize if I'm far of there, but isn't there something missing from the setting's current skill-set? For example, monster knowledge checks are based on its origin which determinines which skill to use - how many monsters can be related to Tech or Engineering associated origins? Robots and computer viruses? Case for Culture. 

One could argue that Culture as a skill also is occupied by History (of a culture), aswell as all Cha-based skills (knowing how to influence people depending on their culture), but I think there is room for a skill specific to the knowledge of cultures in itself. One could even fold in History with this, and further deviate from 4E by expanding on nature into more scientific realms (biology, geography, astronomy). Maybe even add some other more relevant skill.


Anyway, I digress. Love what you're doing, keep up the good work!


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## Morrus

Well, we don't want to deviate from D&D too much.   The idea is that it's a D&D adventure path, not D&D 4.5 in space.  We don't want people to have to learn new rules or anything.

We're toying with the idea of changing the feel of combat by givnig the ranged weapons drastically longer ranges, and doing the "half hit points, extra damage" thing with monsters to make them shorter and more dangerous - and cut out the grind.


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## Khairn

Any thoughts on a mechanic (other than simply initiative) for handling a gun fight between gunslingers?  Similar to how iajitsu is dealt with between samurai?  I understand that creating additional sub-systems is something you probably want to avoid, but the nerve, coordination and accuracy of this iconic western trope deserves some special attention.  At least IMHO.


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## RangerWickett

If your rules cannot handle this

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-rFT-uHm4w]YouTube - For A Few Dollars More - Final Duel[/ame]


and this

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHFLwe98rYM&feature=related]YouTube - The Good,The Bad, And The Ugly - Graveyard Duel[/ame]


then go back to the drawing board. Here's my first take on it.


*Gun Duel*
In a gun duel, two or more duelists take their positions. They have a stand-off, sizing each other up and waiting for someone to make the first move. The longer the build-up, the more time the duelists have to aim, even before they have their gun in hand. Whoever shoots first will be able to deliver a lethally-precise wound. If you ain't first, well, you probably just ain't.

A gun duel has three steps - the challenge, the stand-off, and the draw.


*The Challenge*
Normally, this just involves one duelist challenging another. Both take their places, and then the stand-off begins.

Sometimes a gunslinger in the midst of an existing combat encounter will challenge one or more opponents to a duel. To do this, he delays his turn. Then on their initiative, the challenged opponents can choose to delay their own turns as well. As long as there are at least two duelists, the stand-off begins. Other duelists can join later by delaying their turn.


*The Stand-Off*
Once all duelists are in position, at initiative count 0 they each choose an opponent (usually there's just one to choose, but some duels can get complicated) and make a skill check. The DC is Hard, based on the chosen opponent's level. 

Primary skills are Bluff, Insight, Intimidate, and Perception, though with a good explanation the duelist might be able to use another skill once in the stand-off.

Each duelist makes a new skill check every round at initiative count 0. Keep track of how many successes each duelist has against each opponent. Whenever a duelist gets a success with a particular skill, he takes a cumulative -2 penalty to further checks using the same skill against the same opponent. (So usually it's not feasible to get more than five or ten successes in a stand-off).

_Benefits of the Stand-Off_
Once any the duelist ends the stand-off and goes to the draw, each duelist gains bonuses based on how many successes he had. These benefits last until he makes an attack against that opponent, until his opponent becomes hidden from him, or until he moves.

For each success against a particular opponent, the duelist gets a +1 bonus to his attack rolls, and the first attack that hits deals a base of 20 extra damage, plus an amount of damage equal to the attacker's level times the number of successes he had.

For instance, Clint and Lee (both level 10 bad-asses) are about to duel. After a 10 round stand-off, Clint has 6 successes, and Lee has 5. When Clint attacks, he'll get a +6 bonus to his attack roll, and his first attack that hits will deal an extra 80 damage (20, plus 6 times his level of 10).


*The Draw*
At any time, any duelist can end the stand-off and draw. The duelists go in order of who had the most total successes, and they each get one standard action. Thereafter combat follows normal initiative.

If they had an equal number of successes, they act simultaneously, and they make opposed initiative checks to see who goes first thereafter.



My concern is that it's a lot of dice rolling. It might work mechanically, but emotionally I feel like there's a better way to build tension.


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## Morrus

The other issue is what if other players want to do something during those ten rounds? It could take a long time. I'd be more inclined to use a superhero game style "monologue" rule - you know the ones where a supervillain can make a whole speech as a free action, and nobody cares that really that should take, like, 10 rounds because dramatically it works?


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## RangerWickett

Alternately, maybe something like:


Each duelist gets four d6s. Each round of the stand-off, he can make a skill check, to a maximum of four checks total - one each for Bluff, Insight, Intimidate, and Perception. Each success gets him an extra d6.

When the draw occurs, each duelist rolls their d6s. If one duelist gets more 6s than the other, he wins. If the number of 6s is tied, add up the total of the dice to figure out who wins. If the total is still tied, your actions are simultaneous.

*Complication?*
If there are three or more duelists, you have to choose against whom you're rolling your dice. Usually you want to put all your dice against a single opponent, because you only get the bonus to your attack roll for a single turn. But if you plan to use an action point to attack two foes, or if you have a power that lets you attack multiple foes (such as Twin Strike), you may want to split your dice.

In this case, you go in order of who got the highest total die roll vs. a given opponent, which should stop paradoxical loops.

For instance, A, B, and C are in a duel, and each ends up with 8 dice. Each has two guns and Twin Strike, so they each split their dice 4 vs. one foe, 4 vs. another.

A: Total of 17 against B, 10 against C.

B: Total of 15 against C, 12 against A.

C: Total of 11 against A, 14 against B.

The order is thus:

17 - AvB
15 - BvC
14 - CvB
12 - BvA
11 - CvA
10 - AvC

If anyone gets killed, they don't get to make any further attacks.

Oh, and the bonus to attacks would be +1 per round of stand-off, with bonus damage equal to 20 plus (your level times the number of rounds of the stand-off). The idea is that a 5-round stand-off will kill or nearly-kill anyone.



I'm not sure if you should be allowed to use powers, or if you should limit it to basic attacks.


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## RangerWickett

Morrus said:


> The other issue is what if other players want to do something during those ten rounds? It could take a long time. I'd be more inclined to use a superhero game style "monologue" rule - you know the ones where a supervillain can make a whole speech as a free action, and nobody cares that really that should take, like, 10 rounds because dramatically it works?




Well, if somebody attacks a duelist while they're in the stand-off, that usually means the duelist will decide to go for the draw then, rather than continuing to stand around and let people take pot-shots at him.


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## Morrus

RangerWickett said:


> Well, if somebody attacks a duelist while they're in the stand-off, that usually means the duelist will decide to go for the draw then, rather than continuing to stand around and let people take pot-shots at him.




I was more thinking of:

.... 4 rounds of duelling passes....
Player 2: Wait, it's been four rounds?  Well, in the case I'm gonna pick the lock to the tavern.
Player 3: Oh, in that case, I've had plenty of time to attack those guys down the street.  I'm gonna move towards them and attack.
Player 4: Can I make some skill checks to check out the surroundings?
...etc...


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## RangerWickett

So you game with, what, 2-year-old cockerspaniels? They can't be patient enough to let two guys have a gunfight every once in a while?


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## Morrus

RangerWickett said:


> So you game with, what, 2-year-old cockerspaniels? They can't be patient enough to let two guys have a gunfight every once in a while?




We're not designing for my group. We're designing for all groups.


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## RangerWickett

Well, the point of a gun duel is that you build up to it, and it occurs in an environment where it's a marginally acceptable way to resolve a dispute, but a straight-up attack isn't. Even if you're on the frontier, if you just go around killing folks, the law will run you down. 

But if someone's offended your good name, or has wronged you, you can challenge him publicly and force a duel. If other people interrupt, they lose face.


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## Morrus

RangerWickett said:


> Well, the point of a gun duel is that you build up to it, and it occurs in an environment where it's a marginally acceptable way to resolve a dispute, but a straight-up attack isn't. Even if you're on the frontier, if you just go around killing folks, the law will run you down.
> 
> But if someone's offended your good name, or has wronged you, you can challenge him publicly and force a duel. If other people interrupt, they lose face.




I know. 

It's about striking a balance between gamism and simulationism, as these things always are.  Your approach seems overly long and fiddly to me and uses too many non-core concepts.  I'd rather see something which achieves the same goal but is a bit easier to manage.


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## malcolm_n

I don't remember any duels in Santiago...


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## Morrus

malcolm_n said:


> I don't remember any duels in Santiago...




They happen quite a lot on other Resnick books.  In Santiago, the types are a bit more varied - for example, ManMountain Bates vs. The Angel is - dramatically - a duel, but it's a brawler vs. a blade guy.  But in other books, there are quite a lot of stand-off pistol duels.


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## Zinovia

RangerWickett said:


> So you game with, what, 2-year-old cockerspaniels?



Yes, you can see one of his players in his avatar picture.  They are always begging for goodies and waiting for you to throw them a bone, just like my group.


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## raptor112

I must say this does interest me ALOT, as I have two different scifi/fantasy game ideas for 4E. I'm not familar though with this writer. Are their going to be any alien races/alien PC races for this adventure path or is it a human only scifi setting?


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## KidSnide

Morrus said:


> Well, we don't want to deviate from D&D too much.   The idea is that it's a D&D adventure path, not D&D 4.5 in space.  We don't want people to have to learn new rules or anything.
> 
> We're toying with the idea of changing the feel of combat by givnig the ranged weapons drastically longer ranges, and doing the "half hit points, extra damage" thing with monsters to make them shorter and more dangerous - and cut out the grind.




I like the idea that we could use the adventure path without having to learn new rules.  That having been said, it wouldn't confuse me if Engineering was based on Int instead of Wis.  Nor would it confuse me to see Religion eliminated altogether.  In other words, I wouldn't change things just to make them different, but I'd cut out the material that doesn't make sense for the setting.

-KS


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## Morrus

Sure, there's a balance to be struck.  We're in the very early concept stages right now, so nothing is set in stone - except that it will be friggin' awesome!

We're playing with aliens right now.  Given that there are hundreds of thousands of alien races, we're probably not going to define specific races.  There will be "Human" (per core rules) and "Alien" which will be a flexible race which allows you to choose three "Alien Feats" each of which modifies the base race.


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## raptor112

Morrus said:


> Sure, there's a balance to be struck. We're in the very early concept stages right now, so nothing is set in stone - except that it will be friggin' awesome!
> 
> We're playing with aliens right now. Given that there are hundreds of thousands of alien races, we're probably not going to define specific races. There will be "Human" (per core rules) and "Alien" which will be a flexible race which allows you to choose three "Alien Feats" each of which modifies the base race.



 Sounds pretty cool, Does this mean "normal" D&D races such as halfling, dragonborn, shifter and the like are going to be "alien" feats added to a base race template? Or can they be added as is?


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## Morrus

raptor112 said:


> Sounds pretty cool, Does this mean "normal" D&D races such as halfling, dragonborn, shifter and the like are going to be "alien" feats added to a base race template? Or can they be added as is?




It doesn't mean anything yet - it's very pre-conceptual. We'll probably have a sidebar that says "if you can imagine it, it exists - so take your dwarf, warforged, shifter, etc. and  give it an alien name and you're done!" But it's by no means anything more than half a thought at thus stage.


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## raptor112

Morrus said:


> It doesn't mean anything yet - it's very pre-conceptual. We'll probably have a sidebar that says "if you can imagine it, it exists - so take your dwarf, warforged, shifter, etc. and give it an alien name and you're done!" But it's by no means anything more than half a thought at thus stage.



 Cool, cool. hopefully you'll have interesting "alien" feats that any race can take. How will playtesting be handled?


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## Morrus

raptor112 said:


> How will playtesting be handled?




Probably in-house or via subscribers.  Still too early to say anything; we've literally had the license for under two weeks!


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## raptor112

Just out of curiousity why does your psion have an encounter attack power rather then an augmentable at will? I mean of all the 4E classes Psion needs the least fluff changes and no really power changes. Unless there is something I've missed....


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## malcolm_n

I wouldn't think it was the same psion.


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## raptor112

malcolm_n said:


> I wouldn't think it was the same psion.



 I was pretty sure of that, I was mainly wondering why make up your own psion when they already have one to use right out of the box? I mean what, aside from the powers structure, makes it different?


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## malcolm_n

From what Morrus said before, those are just place holders anyway.  It may not even be a psion when they release it.


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## raptor112

malcolm_n said:


> From what Morrus said before, those are just place holders anyway. It may not even be a psion when they release it.



 Ok, I was just curious as why not use the WOTC psion or if it had to do with the novel series.


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## Nork

I've not bought any of the EN world products before (not saying anything negative about the products, simply saying that none of them piqued my interest for whatever reasons).

Now this Santiago stuff though...  Well the first thing I did when I saw that preview page was send an email to a friend about it.  We both thought it looked really interesting.  I'm planning on buying it when it comes out.  

Personally, I'd say the closer to 4E mechanics the better.  They work, people know em (well most of them), so unless you just can not tell the story without a new mechanic, just leave the game rules well enough alone and focus on the classes, story, and encounter design.


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## rangerjohn

Actually, I don't know if duels fit with a party.  This would be especially troublesome in a pbp.


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## raptor112

Nork said:


> I've not bought any of the EN world products before (not saying anything negative about the products, simply saying that none of them piqued my interest for whatever reasons).
> 
> Now this Santiago stuff though... Well the first thing I did when I saw that preview page was send an email to a friend about it. We both thought it looked really interesting. I'm planning on buying it when it comes out.
> 
> Personally, I'd say the closer to 4E mechanics the better. They work, people know em (well most of them), so unless you just can not tell the story without a new mechanic, just leave the game rules well enough alone and focus on the classes, story, and encounter design.




I third this, it was my big problem with 3rd party supliments in 3.0/3.5. Too many changes that didn't work will with the structure of the 3rd edition. So please stick with the 4E framework and don't make changes or additions just for the sake of changes because I will buy the product...and steal its content to run my D&D in SPACE campaign...


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## Morrus

raptor112 said:


> I third this, it was my big problem with 3rd party supliments in 3.0/3.5. Too many changes that didn't work will with the structure of the 3rd edition. So please stick with the 4E framework and don't make changes or additions just for the sake of changes because I will buy the product...and steal its content to run my D&D in SPACE campaign...




We do hope that the end result will be robust enough to handle any D&D space campaign.  We'll have a lot of our AP's fluff text/flavour in it, but the classes and items etc. are the core of the crunchy stuff.

We're not creating any rules at all.  It's 4E rules all the way.  We're just creating new classes and items - all plug-in type stuff, no fundamental alterations.


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