(Edit: We have a few players for Fridays, but it looks like we may still need 2 more. See bottom post.)

Hey folks, I've been hankering to run or play some 3rd Edition D&D since I've only been able to find groups for 3.5 and PF games in the last several years. Is anyone else interested in a 3E D&D campaign or mini-campaign lasting a few months or a few years? Anyone familiar with 3.5 or Pathfinder could easily play 3E without needing to read much about it, and the 3E SRD is still online at the http://www.opengamingfoundation.org website. I can easily point out the differences myself, as I'm most-familiar with 3E in the first place.

While I doubt anyone else is gonna run such a game, I still have my 3E books and I'd like to run something on Fridays or Saturdays. More specifically, I'm thinking of running a site-based campaign where the PCs adventure in and around a particular city-state, building up a strong local reputation and eventually building their own strongholds (or perhaps being willed the old governor's stronghold after his demise), running their own little domain and fending off threats to it kinda old-school style.

The materials that'd be available for my campaign would be the 3E SRD or core rulebooks, plus Sword & Fist, Tome & Blood, Defenders of the Faith, Song & Silence, Masters of the Wild, Stronghold Builder's Guidebook, Arms & Equipment Guide, Oriental Adventures, Savage Species (to a limited degree; few monstrous races would really be viable in a campaign where politics or realmbuilding in a civilized area would be involved), Manual of the Planes (though a different set of Outer Planes would be used), Deities & Demigods (domains and spells anyway, not deities), and MM2 and the Fiend Folio (mostly for me as DM). I am also adapting the 3.5 Players Handbook II and the Tome of Battle: Book of Nine Swords. Furthermore, custom material from the players and DM would also be available, as I have a variety of homebrewed feats, spells, items, prestige classes, and such for the setting I would use.

I would use my homebrew setting of Rhunaria, which is a small and slightly unusual setting where the humanoid races are largely descended from the ancient Nari catfolk that have since gone extinct. Rhunaria is a fairly young world with only a few thousand years of humanoid history, most of it being the primitive Nari's spread and development into different races, as Rhunaria's rich magical energy lends itself to rapid evolution of the world's creatures. Elves briefly rose to dominance centuries ago, until the Elvish Dominion was toppled by the Great Rebellion of other races, driving elvenkind into hiding after their civilization was destroyed. Dark elves and sea elves were created by the Elven Mage-King's experiments prior to the Great Rebellion, and they fled underground or into the sea, but other elves were forced back into their ancestral homeland where they quickly devolved slightly into the semi-primitive jungle elves, after most of the elven scholars and leaders were slain in the Rebellion. Kobolds and lizardfolk emerged from the yuan-ti's experiments after the yuan-ti escaped in the Rebellion, after the yuan-ti themselves were created by the Mage-King just like many other hybrid monsters in the world that were once enslaved to the elves. After a few centuries or so, the other races began to accept an occasional elf into their societies, but elvenkind is still largely distrusted. In recent years the humans and dwarves began to develop crude technology similar to Renaissance Europe on Earth, producing flintlock firearms, black-powder bombs and cannons, and a few other things, such as clocks and similar devices among the dwarves (who are more technologically inclined and rather miffed about humans starting to catch up so quickly). Kobolds and goblins have started pilfering firearms and figuring out how to produce their own, which helps even their odds against larger races. Various events are unfolding in Rhunaria that could have significant consequences, and adventurers or mercenaries have been in increasingly-high demand.

Rules-wise, I use the 3.0 DMG's optional rules for Renaissance firearms with only minor tweaks (such as a small chance of misfires or gun jamming, which increases for any nonproficient firearm-users). Major playable races of Rhunaria include Humans (divided into 4 ethnicities/cultures, though statistically identical; Gildens look like Europeans and come from the Majestic Kingdom of the Gilded Throne or its vicinity, while Rizans are similar to ancient Egyptians and hail from the Theocracy of Riza, whereas Tashi are of Asian appearance and originate from the Hirotashi Empire and its surroundings, and Tribals look like Africans and live in various tribes of the jungle or savannah),
Dark Elves (who have an underground society and are the most distrusted on the surface; dark elves of Rhunaria have a vaguely Middle-Eastern culture and style and tend towards lawful evil),
Sea Elves (who live in the sea and some large lakes, but have the best relations with non-elves since they refused to fight for the Elvish Empire in the Great Rebellion),
Jungle Elves (who live in tribes around a distant jungle but occasionally return to the lands dominated by other races now),
Dwarves (who mostly live in the Ur-Dalechron Hegemony that they founded, with a mix of Germanic and Roman elements to their culture, style, and behavior),
Gnomes (many of whom live in democratic city-states near the coast, with Greek elements to their culture and their love of philosophy),
Halflings (who have kept their homeland hidden rather successfully but often migrate into other lands because they like to trade with other races and explore or travel about),
Orcs (who live in primitive tribes for the most part and are largely hostile to other races, with occasional exceptions),
Goblins (generally forced to serve other goblinoids but some live free, they're quite clever and nimble but looked down upon by other races),
Hobgoblins (militaristic and domineering, controlling some territories of their own but occasionally living or working alongside other races),
Bugbears (generally roaming free or occasionally leading groups of other goblinoids, rarely living among other races since they like to raid and pillage),
Kobolds (who have largely freed themselves from the yuan-ti by rebelling with the lizardfolk, now living in a reclusive federation or republic of their own but occasionally living amongst other races, who look down on them, but Rhunarian kobolds are exceptionally clever and technically-minded, smarter and more dextrous than most other humanoids),
and Lizardfolk (who live in primitive tribes since most freed themselves of the yuan-ti, lizardfolk revere nature and choose to live primitively out of respect for nature and a reluctance to defile it with mining or lumberjacking).
Planetouched, half-outsider, draconic, half-dragon, half-fey, feytouched, and similar races are also available in Rhunaria, though much more rare and thus lacking any communities of their own, living instead among other races or as lone hermits. However, crossbreeds between mortal races are never viable in Rhunaria; the different humanoid races evolved too differently to retain any cross-species compatibility, so only highly-magical creatures such as fiends and dragons (or shapechangers) can produce viable hybrid offspring (dragons are immortal in Rhunaria and worshipped by some people).

Class-wise Rhunaria is open to the 11 core classes as well as the 5 Oriental Adventures classes (samurai, shamans, shugenja, sohei, and wu jen), plus my adaptations of the 3.5 PHB2 and TOB:Bo9S classes (beguiler, dragon shaman, duskblade, knight, crusader, swordsage, and warblade). I've also considered allowing the 3 new classes from the Rokguan book (courtier, inkyo, and ninja) but I don't think I ever got around to tweaking them for proper balance with the core classes, so I'd have to check them over again and do a bit of tweaking for those before allowing them. Prestige classes are fairly open with only a few exceptions (frenzied berserkers, shifters, forsakers, radiant servants of Pelor, and a few others are blatantly overpowered or problematic and would be denied), but any prestige class would have to be justified in-game with suitable training or the like from appropriate NPCs, studying the right tomes, or what-have-you. I have a significant number of Rhunaria-specific prestige classes available as well, such as the Gilden Fusilier, Hirotashi Kinutsukai, Hobgoblin Roughneck, Goblin Swarmer, Rizan Hanu-Ratha, Scion of Battle, Spiritbond Exemplar, Exile, and others.

I have a few minor houserules for many of the base classes to maintain greater balance, like giving Fighters some combat bonuses at odd-numbered levels, which is mostly in the form of simple boosts the less-powerful classes to bring them up to the level of clerics and druids. I'm also open to the possibility of some class variants, as I have already implemented with Sorcerers in Rhunaria (who are normally Natural Sorcerers, a.k.a. Blood Sorcerers, who inherit their magic from a powerful ancestor such as a dragon or celestial; Natural Sorcerers get a few bonus feats to balance them out better against Wizards; but variant Sorcerers in Rhunaria include Talisman Sorcerers, Spirit Sorcerers, and other kinds that may or may not be mere rumor). Similarly, I've got some minor houserules for the playable races (humans get a daily re-roll similar to the Luck Domain's granted power, for example, while Jungle Elves get a few druidic spell-like abilities, Kobolds get better racial traits so they don't suck, etc.). Bugbears and Lizardfolk have a few racial Hit Dice and have a Savage Species style of progression available for any that might start at ECL 1 or 2, but they also have minor improvements to their racial traits so they don't suck compared to humans with more class levels. Also, spells from the books that were named after wizards of Greyhawk/Oerth or other published settings are replaced in Rhunaria with somewhat different spells created by Rhunarian mages, and I have a moderate number of new Rhunarian spells. And new feats and items. Many of the houserules I came up with for Rhunaria were based on the requests or complaints of players in my first Rhunaria campaign regarding the 3E rules, or imbalances that I saw between different options when the players were planning to take a certain class or the like. So I beefed up or fixed the broken or underpowered stuff with their input or on my own initiative. The Sorcerer variants came about from character concepts by a few of the players, whom I worked with to make some suitable rules support for their concepts.

Also, notably, Rhunaria has less wealth available since it hasn't had much in the way of long-lasting civilizations mining and minting coins or the like, so there are aren't millions or billions of coins sitting around in treasure for adventurers to loot or monarchs to give away for rewards. Instead PCs are more likely to earn noble titles, land grants, and other rewards, and they're more likely to gain major influence and power, as there are few high-level NPCs and they're rather scattered among different nations and organizations. Also, while there are fewer magic items in Rhunaria, there are some ancient Nari glyph relics that could be unearthed in some places (artifacts), and most PCs that aren't major spellcasters are able to naturally harness their latent magical and spiritual energy by acquiring Gifts of the Warrior's Spirit as they advance in level, which largely mimic the benefits of simple magic items. So while a mid-level Fighter is less likely to have a +4 Belt of Giant Strength, he or she might instead have +3 Strength and +2 Constitution inherantly from Gifts of the Warrior's Spirit. Or they might have a +3 enhancement on melee weapons from Gifts of Manifest Fury and a +2 enhancement on ranged weapons from Gifts of Manifest Spite rather than carrying magical weapons (or used to boost the enhancement of existing magic weapons, replacing whatever minor enhancement they might have but still gaining the special abilities of those weapons).

I have a lot more info available on Rhunaria from my old campaign several years ago, which I can put online again if there's enough interest in a new campaign.

I'm interested with a few questions. I've been playing 3.5ed and favor it over 4th. I too ran games and played in many before I took a break. I'm REALLY jonesing to play a great campaign.

1) what do you mean by site based? Would you be using a system like Openrpg?
2) Sunday nights EST would be best. What times were you thinking for Fridays and saturdays?

Thanks
Mechberg

By site-based I mean the party would remain within the vicinity of a single home-base, having adventures in the surrounding countryside and within the city itself. Most of my campaigns so far have focused on travel and exploration, so I wanna do something different, with a more-centralized focus and more PC involvement in local matters. Obviously the campaign would be run over OpenRPG.

I'm already running 2 games on Sundays, so I'm utterly unavailable for anything new on Sundays. But I'm completely free on Fridays and Saturdays, so any time between noon and midnight Pacific time is open (anywhere from 3 pm to 3 am Eastern), though I'd prefer a game starting in the afternoon or early evening.

Well, 3 responses so far, 2 of them in private messages. It's enough to at least seriously consider now, though I prefer groups of 4-6 players. I'll type up some more-specific info for the campaign itself and the area where the PCs would be adventuring around, and get it posted sometime this week.

What day and time would work for you on Fridays or Saturdays? The game sessions would likely be 3 or 4 hours long, unless the players only have enough time for 2-hour sessions. And would folks prefer a mini-campaign of just a few adventures over a few months or so (starting probably around 6th-level or 9th-level in that case), or a longer campaign lasting a year or more (likely starting at 1st- or 3rd-level)?

One PM mentioned a mage or druid as a likely PC, but what about the others? I'll copy over my old Rhunaria material from the old computer and get it back online somewhere (I had to take it offline when Yahoo! Geocities stopped providing a free personal webpage). Once I get that stuff copied over, you can see whatever little houserules and options I had for different races and classes.

I am leaning more and more toward druid, but won't make any decision until you post your Rhunaria material. Pretty much depends on how much time will be spent in urban locations; also how much time is spent traveling. An alternative could be an oriental druid - shaman - as they do not have sacred groves to protect.

If someone else wants to be the parties only mage, then I will cross that option off my list. Even if I don't play a druid, there are other possibilities. It has been around 10 years since I have played 3E, it will be almost new again.

Anyone else? I'll try to remember to hop on the Unshaped server this Friday and Saturday during the afternoon or evening to try a bit more recruiting.

I've been re-familiarizing myself with my old Rhunaria material this week and finishing up a few parts like my houseruled additions to martial adepts and PHB2 classes (fairly minimal), while tweaking my old houserules for core classes and Oriental Adventures classes to get them a little better balanced (a few classes had been largely overlooked the first time around, as nobody was playing them in my first Rhunaria campaign). Clerics, druids, shamans, and wizards are practically untouched beyond new spells and different deities, as they were the standard by which other classes needed to be judged and upgraded. Paladins, rangers, and wu jen have only marginal additions or new options, while sorcerers only get a slight bump but have several sorcerer variants they could choose from for those additions (and minor restrictions for most sorcerer variants; the default/common sorcerer, called a natural sorcerer or blood sorcerer, just gets a few magical bonus feats plain-and-simple).

I'll have my Rhunaria material back online this weekend, I just gotta check and see if there's any adequate Wiki website or the like that would suit my purposes (and the file-size of the various Rhunaria map images), but if not then I'll just post the material on EN World and put a link here (would likely have to shrink the maps though if posting on EN World).

I'll post some info here this weekend that will describe the starting-point of the campaign, the city-state and its surroundings. Hoping to get it typed up on Friday but it might be delayed till Saturday. Depends on if I handle it before or after getting my Rhunaria material back online, and how busy I am on Friday (put off a few things earlier in the week that I gotta get around to).

Well, recruiting on the Unshaped server went fairly well today, we might have enough players for a full group if enough of the potential recruits show up next week to go over char-gen. Possible PCs so far might be an aquatic elf druid, a dwarven cleric or wizard/Golemist perhaps, and a human ranger/bronze dragon shaman/fighter/rogue/Exile, but those are the only character concepts that were mentioned or discussed so far. We'll see if anyone else shows up later today (Saturday) to discuss character concepts or anything, and next weekend we should likely be going over any remaining character creation and initial campaign discussion/introduction. So far it seems that Friday evenings (Pacific time) may be the best day/time slot for the group, but only a few people have really weighed in yet.

Currently it looks like the game will start at 6th-level/ECL 6, with 15,500 XP (giving a little wiggle room for any casters that might spend XP on magic item creation during char-gen). Starting wealth will probably be 6,000 GP, with one free outfit, either an artisan's, entertainer's, explorer's, monk's, peasant's, scholar's, or traveler's outfit. HP is max for 1st-level, rolled for later levels, with any HP roll of less than half the maximum for the hit die getting rounded up to half (so a d4 yields at least 2 hp, a d6 at least 3 hp, a d8 at least 4 hp, a d10 at least 5 hp, and a d12 at least 6 hp), before applying modifiers like Constitution. Ability scores are rolled in standard 3.x style but with one extra set of 4d6-drop-lowest-die, after which the lowest of the 7 totals is dropped and you assign the other 6 as normal. Rolls must be made in front of me on the game-server. For Rhunaria I generally allow re-rolling if the ability-rolls come up low or mediocre. Adventurers who are merely average don't survive past the first few levels in Rhunaria, so they're not PC-worthy.

I'll post some campaign info here soonish. I've started copying over Rhunaria files from my old computer, and will hopefully have all of the relevant info posted to the new campaign Wiki in the next day or three. The campaign wiki is at http://arkspace.wikispaces.com , and the 3.0 D&D System Reference Document is still online at http://www.opengamingfoundation.org/srd .

Hey Arkhandus, it's Logar. For some reason my e-mails to you keep getting bounced back. I'll shoot you my sheet as soon as we get logged in on Friday.

Ark - what time are you going to do this on Friday? I'm open to a 3.0 game if it runs from around 8 EST to 12 EST. lastly, how much does a 3.0 psion differ from a 3.5 psion? I'm itching to learn the psionic mechanics but if the 3.0 psion is very different from the 3.5 psion, not sure how much sense that would be.

Tomm, we start at 9PM EST and run until we quit.