Zalun, yeah, that's the plan. I've used OpenRPG a lot, though I'm not terribly familiar with the newest version, so I should manage pretty well. I used to code my own record sheet nodes full of calculations and such. I don't know how long it will take for me to get that ambitious again, but...

Vash, I'll look into it.

Ok, I've used OpenRPG in the past (close to 5yrs ago now) so I'm a bit rusty myself.

I spent a few hours yesterday going through all the Pathfinder information I have, which I think is most of what is available, and it looks very nice. The changes they made to skills/classes/combat render the supplement books I asked about useless. I would be interested in playing a rogue in a Pathfinder campaign.

Are you talking about the Assassin's Handbook? If so, don't automatically count it out. I'll have to dig for a bit to find it, but I think I have that one. A lot of the changes you'd need to make to bring the class into line via Pathfinder will be in the skills. All of the 'sneaky' skills have been folded into Stealth skill, and all of the 'sense' skills are folded into perception. Plus there is a bit lower of a limit on skill points per level. Otherwise, I'll have to find my copy and read up on it.

Vash, I like the concept of a wizard who makes constructs. He's sorta like the Rigger from Shadowrun with his drones. But I'm leery of letting you have very many at a time. I'll have to look the idea over and see what kinds of limits we can come up with.

Furthermore, if we can work the time out, I have another interested player who wants to use True Sorcery. I've always wanted to try out a system like that, so I'm going to allow it (but don't think you can't have a traditional wizard if you prefer, we'll call it an experiment).

So at the moment, for anyone lurking to see what's going on, our default set of books looks to be:

Pathfinder Core
True Sorcery
Eberron campaign setting.

Nothing else has been worked out for certain yet. I'll keep things updated.

Shadows of the Last War

These are the thoughts I've put together for a campaign idea (currently in sketch format):

Imagine two grand, decadent space-faring cultures (spelljammer style, sailing ships drifting between the stars). One is predominantly human, while the other is predominantly elven. These two empires begin to clash over resources on the fringes of their space. Eventually, the situation becomes totally untenable, and war breaks out. For years both sides send forces to clash and take newly discovered planets and other assorted resources from the other. The warforged are created (I'm going to draft up ways to tell the difference between a human-made warforged, and other makes) to aid in the fight. Massive fleets batter each other on an almost daily basis.

Finally, the humans put together the largest armada they've ever assembled. They figure a strategic strike against the elven homeworld will knock the resolve out of the elves. Little do they know that the elves have come up with a similar idea. Both fleets meet at Craven's star, an unstable binary system. The battle is massive and bloody. Gunfire, magic, curses, all are slung with abandon. But something happens. No one knows for sure if the stars just naturally decided to explode, or if they were overloaded with magic, but the twin stars collapse and explode. Most of both fleets are devastated in the fallout.

The war is officially still on, but with the majority of each fleet lost in a single battle, there is little opportunity to continue fighting. It is at a standstill. However, with the remaining forces stretched thin, rebels have begun to do their work. There are a lot of reasons, of course. The war is too much of a strain on the economy. The common people were tired of not having proper representation, or maybe they just didn't like their rulers. Either way, the rebels now see the time as right to strike back and unseat the old rulers.

Both empires are struggling just to hold on to what they already have, while at the same time, trying to control the rebellions festering at home. And now, at the worst possible time for anyone, a new force has arrived. Stories vary about what that force is, or what they are capable of, but all stories agree that when they attack, they win.

That is where the adventures start. The players are aligned with no one in particular, able to choose rebellion or patriotism, as they wish. Even independance is a viable option at this point. Imagine a sea-faring campaign with nebulae and black holes as backdrop.

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Here is the current official 'OK' list:
Pathfinder rules.
Warforged, Shifters, and changelings from Eberron.
The artificer class from eberron (though there is an alternate pathfinder artificer I need to read over).
True Sorcery magic.
We will start at level 1, though I don't know what method we'll use for stats. I'll leave that up to popular vote.

Other choices to follow based on feedback.

Yes, there will be guns.
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There will be very little of the old Spelljammer setting. I'm stealing ideas, little more.

No phlogiston, no crystal spheres. Things work more or less like they do in the real world. Planets orbit suns, in-system travel is slow, so slow you wouldn't want to try and move between systems that way. Faster than light travel is a form of teleportation, made possible through a combination of wizard spells and custom made ships. Basically, the spell slot you use determines how far you go in one jump. (Currently, one level one slot is one light year, a level four slot is four light years. You can keep making jumps until you get where you are going. I don't know yet how True Sorcery would fit into it, but I'm working on it.)

For convenience, and to allow cinematic boarding actions, we'll assume that air is everywhere, and you could (though slowly) use sails to fly between worlds on ether currents.

In-system travel is accomplished with eberron style airships. The elemental power can lift you off the planet and move you to a place where it is safe to begin the FTL jumps. Further, it is the power source used for battle.
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There you go. I'm working on more details as we speak, a little at a time.

to be perfectly honest, i'm not crazy about space travel in fantasy. maybe the setting is the astral plane is the setting, and the ships go between huge landmasses in it? It would solve the air problem at least, and the plane is infinite. i don't know what true sorcery is. can you explain it?

I'm not too fond of the space travel idea, but I'm willing to try it out. The concept does intrigue me, I am a math/science guy. I have a few ideas about how to make it work.

- (Thinking traditional sailing ships (Sloops, Frigates, Catamarans, and so on) The ships would have a single/multipe mast (depending on size of the ship) rigged with a durable fabric enchanted with Protection from Energy and would provide insystem propulsion via Solar Wind. The Hull would have to be somewhat enclosed, meaning it would have to have a sturdy roof of some sort covering (but not necessarily enclosing) the Deck. The Hull would then be enchanted with a slightly modified Otiluke's Resilient Sphere, which would keep a semblance of pressure but still be a permeable(still not quite sure how to attain this effect with any Spell from memory without stretching the rules a little). The ship would then also be equiped with ring/necklace/bracelet/something of Deep Breath (Deep Breath - Caster's lungs constantly refill with air. There is 'air' in space, but because of the size of space and the amount of other non-metabolizing gasses you are unable to breath in a sufficent about of 'air'. Deep Breath would gather up 'air' and keep the caster from sufficating).
_The Otiluke's Resilient Sphere(Mod) enchantment would have a command word unique to each ship for activating before the ship is taken into space and after the ship has returned to a planet. The enchants would be fueled by Energy Transformation Field. The field would absorb energy from Solar Wind(which there is plenty of, and it does penetrate into the atmosphere so there would always be a sufficient amount.)
_ For Naval battles and ship boarding - The Otiluke's Resilient Sphere(Mod) would not resist the full force of any spell trying to get through. Think of it as shields from Star Trek the harder it's pounded the weaker it gets until it gives out. The ultimat destruction of a ship would occur when it had taken enough damage that the ORS(Mod) gives out and depresureizes (killing the crew). With ORS(Mod) being modified to be somewhat permeable it would stop lower level spells easier than high level spells, like SR. Every time ORS(Mod) resists a spell it loses some SR (a small amount, say SR Loss=Spell Level) but when ORS(Mod) does not resist a spell it loses more SR (a large amount, say SR Loss=Spell Level + Caster Level or X3). When a spell gets through ORS(Mod) it would do less damage than normal (say Normal Damage divided by 1/10 of SR) to everyone on board.
__ Since the ORS(Mod) is a permeable bubble when ships collide/come along side for boarding the two ORS(Mod) spells would react to each other. They would almost merge, think about soap bubble sticking together, and create an open space between the two ships which crews could move through freely. The ORS(Mod)s would also fight to push away from each other, explaining the need for grapling hooks to keep them securely together.

I think that a space travel setting would be interesting. Think of it as an island hopping campaign where instead of sailing across an ocean of water to arrive at a new island, you are sailing across an ocean of stars to arrive at a new planet. It would deffinatly open up a lot of chances to either participate in a large scale war (I'm a big fan of naval battle table tops) or decide we are tired of being chased by one government or other and be able to go somewhere completely new where niether exists.

It would be an interesting campaign, but I would be willing to try it.

Really not sure about firearms being present. You'll have to explain how they work, were developed, and why.

And like vash, I'm not sure what True Sorcery is.

If you can't find a copy of The Assassin's Handbook I have a .PDF file that I might be able to email to you. It is rather small.

True Sorcery is a sourcebook by Green Ronin.
There are still 'Spells' more or less as you recognize them, but instead of being sorted by level, each spell has a DC to cast. You use Spellcraft. Casting several spells will wear you out, and induce fatigue, but there is nothing saying you can't keep casting until you drop.

Having said all that, I do prefer Monte Cook's New World of Darkness Rules, where you get to pick and choose all of the effects, range duration, and so forth. But, so far no one else wants to take a look.

How much Sci-Fantasy does everyone like? I don't have to go with the ideas above, they are just a starting point to get discussion moving.

I enjoy a lot of both Sci-Fi and Fantasy; I am just not sure about mixing the two. I'm willing to give anything a try, but I'd like to have an explanation on how all the advanced 'tech' would work and why they would want to have said 'tech', seeing as magic covers Support/Creation/Destruction.

do people not like my idea, or did you just not read it?