Pros and Cons of using outside material

Thoughts...

Castle and Crusades prides itself on being simple and low powered but I personally don't like what their Monster Manual has to offer. The creatures are weak and the experience is a joke. I suppliment with modified creatures and experience from D&D 3.5. The creatures are tougher but the reward is greater. What do you guys think? Would you rather fight easier foes for less gain or bigger baddies for greater exploits?

Opinions...

I feel you grom simple rules kinda call for simple monsters, but no one wants crappy treasure, and everyone one wants to be challenged...Supplemental monsters are cool as long as they come with supplemental treasure to boot...and everyone knows i love a good fight!!!

I agree. When I DM the siege engine rules are used with a huge flare towards my roots...AD&D.

give us the challenge

It's kind of hard to give an opinion about this topic since I don't know the kinds of monsters you mean from C&C. I know the monsters from D&D and it is a challenge to fight them, but since I've never fought a monster from C&C I have nothing to compare it to. Maybe more nerfing of monsters is needed. The C&C characters are ass and the monsters in C&C are probably ass too because of this fact. Since everyone wants a challenge maybe the monsters need to be downsized a little more or maybe the characters can be made to not be so much ass. This might be corrected with the new classes we've been making so maybe the monsters can be the same as you've been making them.

We have allowed the characters to be stronger than is allowed in the core book.

Magic Items: from 3.5 and AD&D instead of C&C which are just as 'ass' as everything else.

Multi-Classing: Not mentioned in the player's handbook at all. The rules we use are rules from the Troll Lords(creators of C&C) forums and old school D&D. Everyone has noticed how much stronger and diverse a Multi-Class character is in comparison.

Experience: The experience per monster in C&C is terrible and if given with the lame monsters you would all be 2-3 levels lower than you are now. yes the level 1 players would be 0 level commoners, lol.

Even though the monsters are tougher the pay off is that a much more enjoyable experience is had. When obstacles are surmounted the players feel like something was accomplished and fun is had by all(except the dead guys).

So the question isn't about whether the party should be 'allowed to not be so ass', its about whether the monsters should be consistantly of better quality or a combination of weaklings and bruisers?

The combo is perfect. I always enjoy the challenge, and also like to feel powerful. If the game was constantly hard than we can not enjoy being us.

Duelly noted. I also enjoy the mix of difficult monstes and avereage monsters. If your players don't feel heroic how can you expect them to act heroic?

Exactly!

Who Da man? The man be my Heroic character jiggly nuts.

3.5 skeletons seem like elite troops against a band of unprepared C&C heros. Fun and laughs are had by all.

I was told that C&C is made for more role-playing orientation. Given that the group you play w/ is mostly comprised of blood thirsty vigilantes who rarely do good deeds unless forced to. Your job as a Castle Master (or w/e they call it) is to make the session enjoyable. If outside sources allow you to do so then by all means go ahead. Just don't forget or loose yourself along the way.

Its about inspiration. A GM or Castle Keeper(C&C), like a writer, must pull in inspiration from real world events, literature, pop culture and personal experience in order to truly engage his group. So I guess pulling from outside sources is a neccessity.

Given that the group you play w/ is mostly comprised of blood thirsty vigilantes who rarely do good deeds unless forced to.

In response to this very valid statement, I blame myself. If I put the players in positions to feel heroic I'm sure some of hem would actually be heroes. I as the GM have to inspire and I fail in that respect because I write stories where the line between good and bad is always a little hazey and its hard to reframe from doing it. You can't blame the people of The Emerald City for being pompous and narcicistic... OZ made them that way.

To be honest with that entire statement i do have to agree Grom. With the line being so hazy people will be inclined to do what is in their best interests. Even if it means screwing someone over in the process. The group gets off on that. Cmon when shoo disrespected Elix right to her face everyone was hooting and hollering. Greed even made a song about it. Now whos to say that elix wont come back and kill him. Well not now cuz "she" is dead but when people get disrespected in game they take it to heart and will try to get the other person back either in game or harbor grudges out of game. I guess me being the paladin has to be good so that is a cause for some balance but what if i die. DM powers can only activate for so long before the party overthrows the powers and i actually die. Then I believe the party will turn into a villian campaign. I seriously think i am the only thing preventing it from happening. I have even thought out of game that i envy the sneaky bitch on a broom cuz he gets so much stuff done and get a lot of experience for it. Throwing friends to the wind he takes out whoever he wants and laughs at the people caught in his web. Sometimes i envy that because i cant really do much seret things. Its not the pally way. But there i have put my 2 cents on it. Do what you wish with this

Since you hate when 'DM Powers' activate so much that you constantly reference it you should stop pouting when your actions get you killed and just start rolling up your new EVIL broom riding character... just a suggestion.

its not that i dont hate it. Its just that i dont think its fair when 2 equal player who roleplay about the same die. Main character powers activate and prevent them from dying. If they die let them die. If not or he is saving by a thing in-game then thats a valid reaosn. Like if you said Its not your time yet Gwen prevented your death i would be cool with it. But survivving on nothing doesnt seem fair to me. Just my thoughts on it

"Gwen steps in and says its not your time"= DM Powers Avtivate!!!!

You complain but that's what you want. Role up your evil character, just admit its what you want so we can all go back to enjoying ourselves.

there...you gave me a reason in game. I dont care about what happens to him out of game but in game if he is going to live i need him to have a reason or its not fair to me. If gwen steps in i wanna hear it. That way i have validity on my life and its not just a oh you live cuz the dm doesnt want u to die even tho thats what it is. I understand you didnt want me to die but i just wanted a reason in game so that it can give validity to my character in game. Its all part of roleplaying for me

Jayden has never heard of a being known as The GM why would he feel sad and that his life is pointless when he survives. He survived that's all he would see but I am starting to understand you. I get it. Noooo problem...

He does make sense. On the flip side...you need to give your character a reason for living.

It can't be I live to kill evil. That gets boring fast. Why not I live to give Gwen strength as its only worshiper. Become 9th level raise a keep attract followers, then go on a holy crusade to Others to Gwen.

You character will be immortalized

yep your goingto get negative xp for that one cuz im gonna do exactly that lol

HAhaa !!

hopefully not too much.

Alright, first of all....I never stopped enjoying myself

Second, I think you should stop pulling your punches on people dieing... It gets really annoying, at least to me it does, when certain people "die" and then are saved for some unknown reason, but other people die and they're just dead....It also makes it really hard to catch up to them and they start coming up with silly plans that endanger everyone with the knowledge that they will live...
Now, if there is a valid reason they lived then by all means DM powers activate...for instance, the person is on the inside of a creature that exploded, all the force of the explosion goes outward. This said person should be fine because there would be no force or shrapnel applied to the person. There are two things that kill someone in an explosion. Shrapnel and the force shoved outward. The actual explosion in and of itself wont kill a person....So a valid reason like that would be fine for the DM to say, "Hay you know what? You're right. You should still be alive. Maybe you should just have hearing problems for a couple of in game days..." Another example of when someone probably shouldn't be outright killed is what happened yesturday, when Shaun was one shotted by the enemy. This is an example of one of those times when it wasn't expected by the DM and it's his fault that it happened...By his fault I mean because he was the one who created the monster, it wasn't a normal monster in a book...Even with that said, the outcome of how he lived doesn't make sense. Here is this Drow, waiting to make a name for himself, waiting for the party to arrive so that he could decimate them with the slighted whisper of his blade, hits with his first blow and kills his target. He still has at least 2 more attacks and instead decides to not only let the party take the wounded to be healed, but suggests it to them...Now, had that been a new character created that session or 2-3 sessions ago, that character would've died right then and there. They wouldn't have been allowed not to die and been brought back to life from the brinks of death. The DM would've taken his second and maybe even third attack and then taken the body as a trophy....Anyway enough ranting for now, I still have to finish reading the posts on the story so I can catch up...

ok what you mut have missed legend is that he was an honorable drow. he was only fighting us 1 on 1 in honorable combat to earn a name for himself. If you hit someone in 1 shot and down him cuz he wasnt dead he would have no reason to finish the job if he thinks he has killed him. Think about it after he downed talis he then downed jayden, then came close to downing shoo. i think he might have downed him also. no one actually died until people got electrocuted ( thanks darius) and then people actually died this time not because they were ead dead, but because they were downed and no one helped them. I just think that we should leave it to the DMs discrestion and hopefully give a valid reason in game as to why you survived over others who havent

Yeah, but think about it logically. This guy has been waiting for the prince of thieves or shadows or whatever greed is called for who knows how long in order to make a name for himself. Then he fights him and drops him in one shot. Then says to take the body and heal it. That would be like a hunter coming across a 15 point buck, something he's always wanted to have mounted on his wall, shooting it behind the ear and killing it instantly, it was a perfect shot. Something the hunter has never done and to a creature he has always wanted to shoot. His ideal dream hunting trip. Then saying, "Ok I think I'm going to leave the body there to rot and go home and look at that empty space I had set up for it's head" It just doesn't make sense to me. I know it seems like I'm trying to get greed killed, but I'm not. He's already alive so it's too late to try for that It's just the most recent example that's still in everyone's minds.

or its like catching a fish and after catching it throwing it back into the water. you have proved your point by slaying him with one hit