I have decided, after numerous badge rings from numerous people both on and off the inn, that instead of complaining about not being in any D&D games that I should start my own.

Disclaimer: The Warlock of Firetop Mountain is not an original adventure, it is a Fighting Fantasy book written by Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone and has been adapted for D&D by Jamie Wallis.

I am looking for four 4th level character or 5/6 3rd level characters. This campaign will be mostly based on 3e rules but with numerous home rules added and adaptations to the rules in the books, if you join the game you must accept that the DM overrules the written rules.

Adventure Background:
Only a foolhardy adventurer would embark on such a perilous quest, without first finding out as much as possible about Firetop Mountain. That is why you have travelled to the village of Gilford. A sleepy village with a small population, Gilford is situated just two days travel from Firetop Mountain. When you arrive, you make your way to the local tavern, the Unicorn Run.

The Unicorn Run is a well-kept establishment, providing good meals and fine ales. It is owned and run by Otto Stormcloud, a retired human adventurer who bought the tavern many years ago.

Most of the locals here are of a friendly nature and when they hear of your plan to raid Firetop Mountain for it's riches they offer you a pint of cheap ale and a chat, or just a chat depending on what they are doing at that time. Many rumours circulate about the Mountain. There seems to be some truth in the story of the Warlocks treasure being kept in a magnificent, ornate chest with two locks; the keys to these being guarded by the creatures lurking within the dungeon. The Warlock himself is a sorcerer of great power. Some describe him as young and some as a frail old man. Some say his powers come from an enchanted deck of cards, others from a silky black glove he wears. The entrance to the Mountain labyrinth is said to be guarded by goblins but the inner chambers by more fearsome creatures.

It seems that many adventurers have used Gilford as starting point for their trek to Firetop Mountain. Not many have returned and those that have only warn to stay away from the place. Rumours circulate the village about your plan to take the Warlock's wealth for yourself but in turn rumours have kept you in the village, waiting for the courage to ascend to the Mountain... perhaps if there were more of you then you'd stand a better chance then the ones who didn't make it back.
Basically, your group is going to start in the Unicorn Run where you have met and decided to go it together. I'm going to give you time to RP how you met and let you have an evening in the tavern before you set off. Otto agreed, once he heard of your plan, to put you up so long as you pay him for the room and meals if you return.

As I've said you are starting at level 3 or 4 depending on how many of you want to join. I'm not placing any restriction on assignment and you can use any of the 3e or 3.5e books (with the exception of the 3.5 PHB, please use the 3e PHB), to make your characters. Strictly speaking this is a stand along adventure but I can work it into the Forgotten Realms campaign setting so no worries there.

In regards to the home rules I am making the following changes that affect character creation:
ABILITIES
- 4d6, re-roll 1s and drop the lowest dice.
- If you have excessively high/low stats you will need to re-roll everything. (Decided at my discretion but go by the basic rule of more then 2 rolls above 16 or more then two rolls below 10)
CLASSES
- Palidins do not have to be lawful good. Appropriate changes can be made to the mechanics for a Neutral or Evil Palidin.
- I am happy to develop a new class for a maximum of 1 character.
- Weapon & Armour Proficiencies are changed. Basically Weapon Proficiency is based off the 2nd edition rules. Armour proficiency works in a very similar way to how they work in the PS2 game Baldurs Gate: Dark Allaince II
SKILLS
- Non prohibited untrained skills receive a bonus equal to half the characters level.
- Each character has four bonus skill points, to be spent on a craft skill, perform or profession.
FEATS
- Some feats I have decided to combine and change, new ones not in the PHB I haven't looked at. Once you have chosen your feats please consult me and I will tell you if any of my changes apply to your chosen feats, otherwise just do them normally. (Example: Ambidexterity, Two-weapon Fighting and Two-weapon Defence have been combined. When fighting with two weapons if you don't attack with both the off-hand weapon grants you a +1 bonus to AC)
DESCRIPTION
- Gods, your character can worship anything, including something that isn't actually a deity... he/she might just worship him/herself
EQUIPMENT
- Maximum starting gold.
- Be sensible, don't overload yourself (I advise no more then a light load) and pack animals are a no no to carry stuff... they had to get rid of the donkey at Moria in LotR didn't they? (rhetorical question, don't answer)
- Clothing, within sensible limits, is free.
- Armour does not give an AC Bonus, with the exception of shields, but gives a certain level of DR.
- Non magical armour is completely ineffective against magical weapons.
- If you are trained in the use of a type of armour then you do not suffer from any ACP or spell failure.
COMBAT
- I will take care of everything combat and publish the rolls for you with an explanation. This goes for skill checks as well.
- A combat round goes as normal with the exception that a character with a higher dexterity then another may get to act twice in a combat round.
MAGIC
- Spell casting is done on a points system, a o level spell uses half a point, a 1st level spell 1 point and so on. Each spellcaser has a number of points to cast with which is linked to his casting ability (Int, Wis or Cha) and his level. If you run out of spell points you can sacrifice 1 Vitality point for 1 spell point or 1 Damage Point for a number of spell points equal to the modifier for your casting ability.

MISC
- Hit Points do not exist. They are replaced by Vitality and Damage Points. Damage Points are equal to your Constitution score and Vitality on your class and Constitution modifier. If your Vitality is reduced to 0 then your still standing but a retreat is probably in order, if your Vitality and Damage Points are reduced to 0 you are dead, if just your Damage Points are reduced to 0 you are unconscious and bleeding to death (loosing vitality points until you die)
- Critical Hits do not do extra damage but target Damage Points directly. A critical always hits.
- AC is totally scrapped. If you are attacked then I will use your reflex saving throw to see if you manage to dodge/block the incoming attack.

Once you've got your character made send it to me and I'll go through it and together we can work out how my home rules affect things.

EDIT: Found my notes.

Characters must have a description and bio.

If your character has any unusual or prominent features/mannerisms/equipment then I must have an IC reason.

EDITS:
Weapons don't do the damage in the PHB. I am keeping damage secret to prevent people just choosing the biggest/most power weapon on the list.
Although the combat in the adventure should be easy for a group I do not expect everyone to survive.

I am definitely in for this one, looks good will it be a definite one-off adventure or is there a chance it could go on into a campaign?

I am thinkng of playing an outgoing Ranger.

If it turns out that I can tweek my home rules and get them working well there is no reason this can't turn into a campaign for those who want it to... that would mean I'd need to write some big overarching plot for you guys to get involved with.

A friend is on her second 40,000 word novel so hard can it be?

EDIT: Does the RDInn realy condone smoaking? I mean that dude looks cool so maybe it does...

I'm working on the character, just have a couple key questions about your modified system, which I have PMed to you already.

The man looks cool, but red is not a natural skin colour...at all...so uh...yes...I think it's unrelated to our position on smoking...which is...largely...splendid...jell-o.

I hope this has answered all questions.

Please continue recruiting, game looks fun if I wasn't already double occupied.

Sorry, got side tracked by uni work... it always comes about at the wrong time.

If you don't have the 3e PHB don't worry too much, PM me and I can send you a link to where it can be downloaded (grugg won't like it if I post the link here)

The magic system is different, as I have already said. I am going to rule that the only class that needs to prepare spells is the Wizard, admittedly this can seem to be a disadvantage but I am allowing wizards access to the silent and still spell feats at level 3 and level 5 respectively. Wizards will be able to swap out prepared spells for unprepared spells but the new spells will not be silenced or stilled. This is to promote forward planning for higher level wizards.

Number of spells, for classes that cast of a known spell list that remain unchanged.

I am using a spell point system, for every 0 level spell you would have you get half a spell point, for every 1st level spell you get one spell point and for very 2nd level spell you would have you get 2 spell points etc.
The spells you cast use spell points in the same way, a 2nd level spell uses 2 spell points. This causes spell casters to be a bit more free with their spells. Spell points are not interchangeable with different classes, so if you are a sorcerer/cleric you must keep your spell points separate.

Also, when/if a character runs out of spell points he/she can elect to take damage to gain spell points. The 'exchange rate' is one vitality point for 1 spell point of one damage point for a number of spell points equal to the modifier for your casting ability.

Weapon and armour proficiencies are changed, I'm currently refining this system a little more but I am removing ACP and different armours give you different DR. Armour also doesn't have an arcane spell failure associated with it, if you are proficient with armour then it has not spell failure and if you are not then you can't cast spells. It will cost more for spellcasters to become proficient with armour then martial classes. At 3rd/ 4th level I would say to make it simple for you at the moment just pick your armour and 1 or 2 weapons that you can use (unless your a fighter as you could probably pick 3).

Starting gold, I've mentioned max starting. For higher level characters this will probably be limiting so double max starting gold. Don't, even though you can't, get magical weapons or armour that gives you a bonus to your attract or armour class.

The game has reached it's quote for clerics.

No more clerics please.

HEALING RULE
I rule that healing magic can only heal Vitality. Wound Point damage must be treated either through the long-time care application of the Heal skill or though rest if it's not too serous (serous = down to 50%).

So basically what we need is someone to soak up damage, and someone else to deal it out in quick bursts huh?

Any non-cleric really ^^

We seem to be needing a tank and a wizard/sorceror, I suppose.

I was actually thinking more like a tank and a rogue, someone to scout ahead, disarm any traps the warlock is bound to have guarding his treasure, and other such rogue like things.

My character will be progressing as a sorcerer as well, assuming he survives to his next level or 2.

Think i am going to roll a Barbarian probably, thinking a Half-orc just to be original.

I'd just like to thank Shield Wolf, The_Haruspex and Darren for submitting their characters. I have looked through them and made the appropriate edits to bring them to my home rules. There are some things we still need to talk about but we can do that by PM. Sorry for the delay.

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SPENDING PROFICIENCY POINTS

I have given each character a number of proficiency points, the number they have is roughly based on 2e rules for weapon proficiencies. You can spend them in the following manner.

Proficiencies can be spent on either weapons or armour, there are 4 levels of training with each weapon and 3 tiers with armour.

You gain proficiency with each weapon as follows. You must gain proficiency with each weapon individually. (the effects of each proficiency with the same weapon stack)
0 Points = Non-proficient, you don't know how to use it. -4 on attacks.
1 Point = Proficient, you know how to use this weapon and can use weapons like it in the same manner.
2 Points = Trained, you are trained in the use of this weapon. +1 to attack and AC when using this weapon.
3 Points = Expert, you are expert in the use of this weapon. +1 to

You gain proficiency with armour in the following way. Each tier gives proficiency with different armour.
1 Point* = Tier 1, Light Armours and Small/light Shields.
2 Points* = Tier 2, Medium Armours and Large/heavy Shields.
3 Points* = Tier 3, Heavy Armours and Tower Shields.

* If you are a spell caster, any type, then you may spend double the listed points to not suffer any spell failure when casting spells with somatic components.

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EDIT: We do need one more player.

I am using the 3e skills, not the 3.5e skills. The main and important difference is disallowed non-class skills.

I am thinking something along the lines of all unranked class and/or cross-class skills receiving a levels based bonus to these skills. I will include this in the background workings so that I don't commit myself and then find things don't work.

Also I have noticed that under my rules armour class is particularly low, this is something I am going to find a way arround, so you dont all die, most likly some modification to one rule or another.

AC is merely a measure of how difficult it is to strike you. You traded off the AC bonus from armor for DR, which is a much more realistic system if I do say so myself. Since when does wearing a suit of Full Plate make you harder to hit? If anything it slows you down and makes you easier to strike, but it affords protection from most of the harm associated with the attack you received. So yes, with a lower AC we will be hit more often, but with the DR we will be hit for much less damage than what we would have otherwise.

Think about it, if my character were to simply be wearing armor using the standard AC rules, when he is hit the blow would be devastating to his single HD, whereas with the DR from the armor (and racial) he will not take near the beating from a single blow.