Dwellers of the Forbidden City--I1 Vintage 1980--Pathfinder Core Only (Inactive)

Game Master Chainmail

Somewhere in the heart of the steaming jungle lies the answer to the whispered tales--rumors of a magnificent city and foul, horrid rituals! Here a brave party might find riches and wonders--or death! Is your party brave enough to face the terrors of the unknown and find....THE FORBIDDEN CITY

Note: Former players from the previous adventure have preference, but AT LEAST one new player will be added.

4th level character using Core rulebook ONLY, a 20 point buy, and 3000gp starting equipment.

Part 1 the characters defeated the Cult of the Reptile God and saved an entire town from thralldom.
Part 2 the characters contributed to the rise of a Mile High Ice Titan that now walks the world.
This is the third part of a long term campaign that, if successful, will continue with the Laura Hickman/Margaret Weiss Desert of Desolation series.

I went through this at Origins 1980 when it debuted. It is a sentimental favorite. Recommended mix for party of seven is three martials, druid, cleric, wizard, rogue. New characters will fill in the missing roles of those left vacant by the party. Could see a monk or bard in place of a martial character.

I'm interested, and I'm new to play-by-post here, so I apologize if I'm overstepping or not following protocol, or something.

My character idea is an eldritch knight (sort of an "old school elf"). I'd intend him to be more martial than wizard, although that can be adjusted, if necessary.

What sort of character creation guidelines should I aim for, if I get chosen?

Hi Chainmail/Samduc - I would love to play in this game. Greyhawk and old school adventures are my meat and drink.

I would like to offer up a monk, I'll build one later today based on this alias. He will be a melee combat specialist.

I love, love, LOVE the "I" series, and have very fond memories of playing in them around 1987-88 (although I don't remember any of the details)

Which classes are you losing/which ones do you need?

Currently in are: Paladin, Fighter/Ranger, Cleric.

Currently have guaranteed seats but have not checked in: Wizard (gnome illusionist), Bard, Rogue (who may be switching)

Given PbP attrition and how ^&%$ hard this module is, may consider an eighth.

Well..since poor old Grimm is not doing too well in the KotBL, I was wondering if I could throw a character out here for inclusion in this adventure (Though I am NOT giving up on Grimm...he will survive! lol)

Was thinking of a magic-using character of some make/type. Will whip something up asap.
Daniel/Grimm

Sounds like a great adventure for a druid. I'll see what I can come up with.

If enough interest is shown, we will have two groups.

All right, here's that druid from michaelane.

How could I refuse a chance to go through this adventure?? I remember when it was first released and reading it through just blew my (admittedly immature 11 year old) mind, he he.

Anyway, I am leaning towards a ranger as my first choice, followed by a rogue, then a sorcerer, although if the party needs a role filled I am more than happy to switch classes.

I will post some stats later this evening.

Milhar is coming together slowly but surely. I'll sort out the rest of him tomorrow. He is probably going to be a ranged specialist with a soupcon of arcane. Should be able to hold his own in combat but the chance to develop into an arcane archer seems good.

I've used average hit points for this build. OK?

Cheers

Tribute, just thought I'd remind you (in case you forgot) that the person playing Bizz stated he would be traveling and would not be online very much until the 16th.

And don't worry, I'm not going to sign up for this game and ruin yet another group's adventure. But you WOULD have to go and run a really cool old school mod like Dwellers just to tempt me... :)

Have fun everyone!

OK here is Sandrion, my Archery ranger. I built him so he would be effective in a jungle environment, although I might tweak him a bit further. Most of his stats are done, except for the Hunter's Bond. I am not sure which way to go yet.

Posting for interest. Here is Kurgan Dorigsson, Dwarf Ranger (Skirmisher).

Built more as a front-liner, he has a wolf companion named Kira.

I will need to tweak/update to the requirements, but shouldn't take more than a few days (I have odd work schedule).

Here you go, DM Tribute.

How much of a backstory are you looking for? Milhar is pretty much done. Depending on the make up of the party he may get a bit of tweaking but he is an archer, a secondary warrior and a skill monkey. Not a face character at all!

Hope you like it, cheers

I am not averse to dump stats. The tournament characters are about 20 pt builds and for example, a dwarf with 18str and 7 CHA.

coming up with a rogue.
I have a cool story to go with him but I have to get it off my computer at work (which is proving rather difficult due to our new cyber security system that got installed.) will get it eventually.

ok Daniel/Grimm here with my wizard submission....hope you like him..will have to make up some fluff for him, but the crunch is there for you to check out!

I don't have a complete write-up for him yet, and not all details are settled, but here goes:

It took a day to drive to Chester, PA and arrive at Widener College, the scene of origins 1980. Plenty of people had set up outside to sell used games, and this greatly upset the exhibitors inside. The Geneva folks were not happy having a long drive from TSR headquarters, and many complained about the convention site.

But the tournament featured a module later known as I1. Those of you not familiar with a vintage TSR tournament have missed something. Imagine showing up and being put in groups of six and given six character sheets. You have 15 minutes to review your character sheet and pick basic equipment and spells. Then you have 3 and a half hours to complete the adventure. It was my first tournament, and my friends were still grumbling about last year's tournament. The 1979 tournament module was C1 (hidden shrine of Tamoachan) with a scoring system that rewarded you for casting the right spell in a certain room.

I, of course, was always the wizard. Our group of six at least knew each other and what characters we were each going to play beforehand. Other groups were squabbling over who would play what and who would be the caller. Yes the caller, a good idea that I would like to see implemented in PbP in some form. So I look at my sheet and my level 5 wizard has 15hps! I look at his magic items, +2 ring of protection and wand of frost with 4 charges. It is obvious I better make those 4 charges count. The ring means, with a 13 dexterity, my AC is 8 versus 10. Rather than always being hit, there will be an occasional miss if someone wants to shoot for the wizard, not an uncommon occurrence. I look at my friend Steve and he laughs and points out that as the tank he has 42hps and an AC of 1 (low was good then)! I inform him his job is to make sure we use his hps before we have to use mine. I pick my spells, and notice another friend is the secondary tank with a level 1 bard (at that time a level 1 bard was like a fighter/thief of about fifth or sixth level).

We started what I believe is quite an amazing David Cook adventure. If this is your first time, you will be impressed. If it is a walk down memory lane, so much the better!

Thanks for the great story, Tribute. There aren't that many folks around these parts from those days. I myself got into gaming in '84, but it wasn't until '87 that I was in my first real campaign, which the DM based on the Desert of Desolation series.

As Distant Scholar is new to PbP and has put together an awesome retro mix of fighter and wizard, he will be in the first group.
I think the veterans can help him get settled. Develop an alias for Vardlon and post in discussion thread with him.

Since Core has no traits, you will be awarded an extra feat. I will explain why I prefer no traits. Many complain about the rogue being a bad character class--I think it has suffered the most in what is now Pathfinder of the big four originals (fighter, cleric, wizard, thief). I don't like traits as it allows many to poach in the rogue's ecological niche (disable device/perception/stealth) with the cross skill traits such as one I confess I used when building my zen archer.

Wisdom Made Flesh: Benefits: Select any Strength-, Constitution-, or Dexterity-based skill. You may make checks with that skill using your Wisdom modifier instead of the skill's normal ability score. That skill is always a class skill for you.

GROUP 2 looks like it will soon be big enough.

guess i don't need to post my rogue then as you seem to have things full

Doing 2 groups

well I can post stats but the back story will have to wait a bit.

Posting for interest.

Gonna need to bow out. I'll be following tho!

I present Skirros the Savage, a half-elf from the Mediogalti Jungle. You asked for a bard, but since there is no bard in 1st edition with only three character levels, I have built Skirros to be as close to a 1st ed Bard as I could: a Fighter 1/Rogue 1/Druid 1. I even tried to make her as legal as possible, but it's impossible to have at least a 15 in Str, Dex, Wis, and Cha with a 20 point build (see p. 117 of the 1st ed PHB).

Since this is not at all a maximized character (the opposite, in fact), I would ask for one exemption from the PHB-only rule: the Boon Companion feat from Animal Archive or Seekers of Secrets. Without this feat, my snake companion will be toast pretty quickly. If that's a no-go, I'll swap out the AC for a domain instead.

6 is enough to send off group 2. 7 would be better.

While I've been playing long enough to have been at Origins in 1980, I was only 13 and even though Chester, PA was only 5-1/2 hours from the suburbs of Rochester, NY, my parents weren't that supportive of my fledgling RPG habit.

Bikmalu is also from the jungle, but while I do have plenty of old Greyhawk maps, I don't know exactly where Dwellers of the Forbidden City is set. Mediogalti? Are you going to assign bonus feats where qualified or shall we all assume we get them and pick our own?

Everyone gets a bonus feat they can pick. A fourth level human fighter would have quite a few!!!

I just noticed that you wanted 4th level PCs. I've updated Skirros.

yay bonus feat.

The Forgotten City is in the Amedio Jungle. The Greyhawk Gazeteer made the Forgotten City in the Sea of Dust--but that is just plain cruel.

Note: I am using Golarion dieties to make it easier.

Group 1 is traveling from the Blackmoor in the north all the way to the Amedio Jungle to visit the Forgotten City.

Does the extra feat count for current players? :)

Amedio Jungle it is for Bikmalu...and Improved Initiative for the bonus feat. All up to date.

here is the link for my first cut at the first two chapters of Talon's childhood. I just need a starting city. I have a total of 5 chapters worked out.

thought I needed something cool because I was bored and he is level 4 after all.

story time link

Here is the updated Arvhil with added feat and removed traits..

I will keep recruitment open until Group 1 is ready to depart as that may leave extra openings and I want to optimize two groups. Should take at least a week.

Submissions are looking great--no news is good news. The fine details are not as important as what you want to do with your character. Remember to build an extra stat point for the level 4 build on top of the 20pt buy.

I'm off out now but I can definitely produce a background in the next few days.

Cheers GMT

Talon intends to be a rogue then go into shadowdancer.

I wanted originally to be an assassin but the evil alignment restriction prevents that.

(yes Shadowdancer is CRB)

There you go Chainmail. Background done and probable path towards Arcane Archer included.

Let me know what you think, especially if you find anything you would like altered.

Cheers

This looks very exciting. I will put together a. Human fighter focused on archery with a halberd for those timesa when melee is required. The extra feat will be big for a ranged build.

Here is my submission. Let me know if I missed anything. I will work up an alternative build as a melee fighter in case that would be a better fit in one of the parties.

Submissions look good. Recruiting will end Monday at the latest!!!

Like what I see. I am working on what storyline I want. The module gives four good ones, but I am thinking of a fifth to customize it.

Headhunters, cannibals, and nasty jungle creatures await!

you need anything for Talon?

Any questions for Bikmalu?

Trawling through the posts so far I have this as a draft roster.

Sandrion - archery ranger4
Kurgan - ranger4 (skirmisher)
Arvhil - elf wizard4
Allenin - fighter4 (ranged or melee)
Skirros the savage - druid2/ftr1/rog1
Talon - rogue4
Bikmalu - druid4 (plant domain)
Milhar - monk3/wiz1

Originals
Paladin
Fighter/ranger
Cleric

Is that on the money chaps?

Looks right to me. Here are some extra details.

It looks like Milhar is also ranged focused based on feats and development path.

Harder to pin down Skirros but feats are also ranged.

Talon looks like a skirmisher.

Bikmalu looks caster/summoner focused

Avrhil was picked for table 1 so is out of the running for table two.

Overall we are very marshal heavy having traded the wizard and the cleric for marshal options compared to the recommended mix.

Oric The Oracle is a duplicate of a PFS character that I can adapt for a outdoors campaign and level if there is a need for more heals.