I started to watch Critical Role for the first time (suuuper late to the party, I know) and the thing that stuck out the most for me was the fact that Mercer was actually integrating the character's getting their subclass into the game and I love the idea and want to use it, but I don't know how to properly implement it into my campaign without having it derail/halt the entire campaign. Have any of you done this successfully?
I've done this with several of my characters in one of the campaigns I'm running.
The game currently has five players, an Assassin, a Champion, a Storm Domain Cleric, a Balance Domain Cleric (custom domain I created for the character), and a Storm Sorcerer who was up until very, very recently a Wild Magic Sorcerer.
I haven't been able to integrate the assassin or the champion's subclasses into the campaign, or even really their classes; they're too generic to handle that easily. The assassin's backstory *is* integrated into the campaign, but not the champion's - again, too generic.
The campaign is set during an active apocalyptic event during which the Gods are coming back to life after a long, long period of being dead. This makes integrating the Storm Domain Cleric easy - during the adventure, his God returned to life after the party burned down a forest with a firestorm started by fireballs and call lightnings, and the god decided to... enhance the effects. Things proceeded to get out of hand and then the Storm Cleric decided to try to sink the island because of a possible world-ending fungus getting loose, and again his God helped him out and caused some volcanoes to detonate and such. It's all quite terrifying.
The Balance Domain Cleric is also tightly integrated into the story because, as might be evident by the previous paragraph, the Gods coming back isn't exactly a *good* thing, and the 'balance' is more along the lines of 'balancing out the gods'.
Finally, the Wild Magic Sorcerer is tightly integrated into all of this because his storyline was about how his family gained a magically potent bloodline, and it essentially came down to a mixture of the blood of one of the dead gods and a magical connection with a mutated aboleth. The connection with the aboleth was perverting the bloodline, making their magic uncontrollable; the blood of the dead god was feeding on the magical power of the aboleth and using it to resurrect that god in the body of the Sorcerer's father.
The aboleth was recently slain by the party in an attempt to cure the sorcerer's father, though at that time it was too late - but it did 'cure' the Sorcerer of having no control over his magic. After it happened I forced the player to change their subclass; his entire storyline was based on curing the wild magic condition, but it completely slipped the player's mind that that would also necessitate a change in subclass. For various reasons, the player is now blood-brothers with the Storm Domain Cleric, so he chose to switch to the Storm Sorcerer subclass, which fits enough with the story that I accepted it.
The no-longer-dead god that is now the Sorcerer's father is actually the one granting the Balance Domain Cleric his powers, as that god was actually the human sorcerer-king to originally kill off all of the gods in a ritual that turned him into a god for a brief moment.
I meant incorporating the characters getting their subclass into the campaign's story, not just having a character have their abilities out of nowhere. Sorry if it wan't clear.
I have three Paladins in my current campaign. When they returned from one of their adventures, there were three people waiting for them. It went kind of like this:
----------
Outside the house were three yackles and a unicorn. One black fluffy yackle, one white high quality yackle, one blue bedraggled yackle, and the pure white unicorn. Wondering who came to visit, they went inside to be greeted by the representatives of the martial arm of the church. Sir Edmund of the Order of the Silver Sword, Sir Harrison of the Order of the Ebon Fist, Lady Lythande of the Order of the Green, and Sir Eroll of the Order of the White Shield. All well known to the Paladins of the group.
Sir Edmund addressed them all “We have been hearing some distressing news about your actions. Not showing mercy to your captives, being unusually cruel in times of conflict. We are here to help guide you on your path to righteousness. Contact me if you wish to properly guard the innocent” The knight in shining armor, walked out the door.
“That’s a bunch of garbage. Evil needs to be stamped out when it rears its ugly head. If you want to unleash the forces of true justice, seek me out.” Sir Harrison tipped his hat and left.
The Lady Lythande seemed to closely examine every member of the party. “Yes, some of you will do. If you want to shine The Light, seek me out.”
“Well that was overly dramatic. The solution to most problems just lies in forgiveness. Almost every act of evil is just a situation done by somebody who was clearly misunderstood. If you have a kind and forgiving heart, seek me out. Sir Eroll, bowed on his way through the door.
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"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
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I started to watch Critical Role for the first time (suuuper late to the party, I know) and the thing that stuck out the most for me was the fact that Mercer was actually integrating the character's getting their subclass into the game and I love the idea and want to use it, but I don't know how to properly implement it into my campaign without having it derail/halt the entire campaign. Have any of you done this successfully?
I've done this with several of my characters in one of the campaigns I'm running.
The game currently has five players, an Assassin, a Champion, a Storm Domain Cleric, a Balance Domain Cleric (custom domain I created for the character), and a Storm Sorcerer who was up until very, very recently a Wild Magic Sorcerer.
I haven't been able to integrate the assassin or the champion's subclasses into the campaign, or even really their classes; they're too generic to handle that easily. The assassin's backstory *is* integrated into the campaign, but not the champion's - again, too generic.
The campaign is set during an active apocalyptic event during which the Gods are coming back to life after a long, long period of being dead. This makes integrating the Storm Domain Cleric easy - during the adventure, his God returned to life after the party burned down a forest with a firestorm started by fireballs and call lightnings, and the god decided to... enhance the effects. Things proceeded to get out of hand and then the Storm Cleric decided to try to sink the island because of a possible world-ending fungus getting loose, and again his God helped him out and caused some volcanoes to detonate and such. It's all quite terrifying.
The Balance Domain Cleric is also tightly integrated into the story because, as might be evident by the previous paragraph, the Gods coming back isn't exactly a *good* thing, and the 'balance' is more along the lines of 'balancing out the gods'.
Finally, the Wild Magic Sorcerer is tightly integrated into all of this because his storyline was about how his family gained a magically potent bloodline, and it essentially came down to a mixture of the blood of one of the dead gods and a magical connection with a mutated aboleth. The connection with the aboleth was perverting the bloodline, making their magic uncontrollable; the blood of the dead god was feeding on the magical power of the aboleth and using it to resurrect that god in the body of the Sorcerer's father.
The aboleth was recently slain by the party in an attempt to cure the sorcerer's father, though at that time it was too late - but it did 'cure' the Sorcerer of having no control over his magic. After it happened I forced the player to change their subclass; his entire storyline was based on curing the wild magic condition, but it completely slipped the player's mind that that would also necessitate a change in subclass. For various reasons, the player is now blood-brothers with the Storm Domain Cleric, so he chose to switch to the Storm Sorcerer subclass, which fits enough with the story that I accepted it.
The no-longer-dead god that is now the Sorcerer's father is actually the one granting the Balance Domain Cleric his powers, as that god was actually the human sorcerer-king to originally kill off all of the gods in a ritual that turned him into a god for a brief moment.
Are you sure you're talking about subclass? They're pretty much built into the game and come into play for most characters at the 2-3 level range.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
I meant incorporating the characters getting their subclass into the campaign's story, not just having a character have their abilities out of nowhere. Sorry if it wan't clear.
I have three Paladins in my current campaign. When they returned from one of their adventures, there were three people waiting for them. It went kind of like this:
----------
Outside the house were three yackles and a unicorn. One black fluffy yackle, one white high quality yackle, one blue bedraggled yackle, and the pure white unicorn. Wondering who came to visit, they went inside to be greeted by the representatives of the martial arm of the church. Sir Edmund of the Order of the Silver Sword, Sir Harrison of the Order of the Ebon Fist, Lady Lythande of the Order of the Green, and Sir Eroll of the Order of the White Shield. All well known to the Paladins of the group.
Sir Edmund addressed them all “We have been hearing some distressing news about your actions. Not showing mercy to your captives, being unusually cruel in times of conflict. We are here to help guide you on your path to righteousness. Contact me if you wish to properly guard the innocent” The knight in shining armor, walked out the door.
“That’s a bunch of garbage. Evil needs to be stamped out when it rears its ugly head. If you want to unleash the forces of true justice, seek me out.” Sir Harrison tipped his hat and left.
The Lady Lythande seemed to closely examine every member of the party. “Yes, some of you will do. If you want to shine The Light, seek me out.”
“Well that was overly dramatic. The solution to most problems just lies in forgiveness. Almost every act of evil is just a situation done by somebody who was clearly misunderstood. If you have a kind and forgiving heart, seek me out. Sir Eroll, bowed on his way through the door.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale