Thanks, Handy. I had some thoughts along that line, but you have articulated it far better than I was able. Very helpful! I'll dig out my Vance books and take a look.

Scintillant and Entowered are excellent suggestions that are going onto my list for consideration.

I'm the one who dropped the ticket to Jeff's Friday night game. I was busy registration night so my wife offered to sign me up for games if I left a list. While everyone one else was struggling, she somehow managed to get me into all of my top choices, including some things that overlapped.

So, yes, I dropped Friday night, but only because I also had a ticket for Jeff's Thursday night game.

I'm glad someone from the list snatched it up.

Chris J.

My campaign is based in Khromarium. There has been some overland travel to Swampgate and Kor. Mostly the party travels by sea, having acquired a ship in the Brigands Bay region by unscrupulous means.

My house rules:

1. Max hp at 1st level. Re-roll 1's for hp at all other levels.
2. Ascending AC.
3. Carousing per Jeff Rients.
4. 100 gp / level / month / upkeep. Covers room, board, minor expenses, training, research, non-exotic spell components. Henchmen are 50 gp / level / month for upkeep.
5. Combat runs like B/X rather than RAW. RAW are pretty good, but I always unconsciously revert to B/X.
6. Free henchman at 2nd level. This means no 500 gp recruiting cost  You still pay upkeep and need to share loot with them.
7. Henchmen must always be lower level than the boss. Henchmen who reach the same level must go off on their own. Henchmen may stop gaining XP one shy of advancing to same level as boss if the player wishes. This is the Riker Rule.

Since learning that I write like the late David Foster Wallace, I decided to quit my job and wait for the book deals to come rolling in. So far nothing. Maybe literary agents don't read game blogs?

While I vastly prefer ascending AC for play, I still tend to think in terms of descending AC. When someone says plate and shield, I think AC 2 not AC 18.

You should talk to the DM and let him or her know you are frustrated.

I think there are a lot of ways to do it and they all work fine. The important thing is that the DM make enough XP available so the characters can advance at the rate the DM wants.

Setting the appropriate rewards has been a struggle at times in my own campaign. In the current campaign, we've played 20 sessions and the PC's are 3rd and 4th level with no one close to 5th. That seems about right to me, but that's just how it worked out. If I want to maintain that same rate of advancement going forward, I need to increase the amount of XP that are available to the players.

In my campaign I charge 100gp/level/month for upkeep. For henchmen it's 50gp/level. I also use Jeff Rients carousing system which allows players to spend 1d6 x 100gp at the end of each session for a bonus XP (and a chance for something bad to happen if they blow their save vs. Drunkeness). I also let players pay 100gp per magic item for identification.

The net result of all this has been to keep the players pretty much broke. Some players like it and think it feels appropriate to the genre, others resent it.

In my campaign, the priests of Xathoqqua serve the inscrutable Higher Purpose of their dark god. They are hampered in this task by having absolutely no idea what this Higher Purpose is. This lack of knowledge does nothing to dampen their enthusiasm, however.