GM Sgmendez's SteamFu Adventures - The Tóng Shī Wèishì (Inactive)

Game Master Sgmendez

Just remember that some character creation options are not available yet as they are not public. And there will be some Variant rules that will be coming into play but those will be revealed later as well. Right now I am just looking at the concepts and ideas.

That's cool... That's why it's a version 1.

I have a few interesting concepts in mind. I know it's not listed allowed, but anychance would Soul Knives from Psionic Unleashed be allowed? Thinking about focusing my Ki into blades. :)

I am not against Psionics (and I do own the Psionics Unleashed) but I don't know. What is the concept? Tell me the characters story and I will tell you if the Soul Knife is OK.

OK, I have been mulling it through my brain and I have decided that there will be three groups. Yes, I said three groups. And they will have five players each. Now each group will have a separate story within the world and may or may not meet at some point, don't want to spoil anything to soon. Muhahahahaha

So the three groups will be:
A Group of Kingdom Guards
A Group of Bandits/Rebels
A Group of Wanderers

So I will be taking a total of 15 players.

Concept: A Soul Knife(The Gifted Archetype from Psionics Expanded if allowed). Replace Powerpoints and psionic flavor with Chi. Still thinking on race. Leaning towards human or Samsaran. He/She(Still thinking on gender) has learned through intense training to focus their chi into weapons. Tending to be Lawful neutral, they wander the land, trying to maintain the balance in a cruel harsh world, by assisting those in need. He occasionally joins caravans to protecting them, sometimes he assists local farmers who're having bandit troubles, all the while, teaching the philosophy of harmony, balance. A wandering hero to say the least, who can to fantastic feats with the power of his Chi.

Hope that'll fit the concept of the game. I thought replacing Psion flavor with chi flavor was a neat theme idea. Let me know what you think.

Based on names of the groups alone, I'd be most interested in the Bandits or the Travelers. Just throwing that out there.

Sorry, I missed that. :)

I am interested in the clockwork option. Casio Tatsu would be a clockwork ninja on the side of the kingdom guards.

I'd personally be interested in the wanderers group, but wherever you put Xiao works for me.

Tchzzack would fit best as a wanderer.

I could rewrite Renzo to fit into any of these groups, so just place me where ever you need me. but i think i'd probably enjoy the kingdom guards the most

Still waiting on word from the DM if he likes my concept. :)

I have been thinking about it and I think I will allow it. The other option would be to be to make a new Monk Archetype that functions like the Qinggong Monk, and uses his Ki to create weapons and other tricks. But in reality just going Soulknife is probably easier and accomplishes the same thing.

Awesome. I'll work on the character here then between calls at work, :) Also, the Gifted Blade Archtype. Was thinking about it to give me a bit more variety. Lose Psychic Strike, gain limited amount of powers from a small list. More uses for his Chi. Of not that's ok. :)

Yeah, I looked at it in Psionics Expanded. Its fine, I was including that in the above since you already mentioned it.

Wow, so much consideration of abilities and such. I figure I'll just put together something that feels right for the character concept once I know if I get to play and what all the home rules are. Only real consideration I've given is which school I might want her to specialize in, but only because that highly flavors her personality. Enchantment and Transmutation are both excellent choices for an alienist, but each points in a very different direction. Illusion could theoretically work too, but all the ideas I have for that are decidedly in villain territory.

Bleh, As always, Making a character takes me too long. and I miss out on a spot -.- Ah well. I suppose I'll just lurk on the gameplay thread.

Wait, Nevermind...derp. Missed the part about 3 groups.

Sgmendez, did you ever decide on the starting level? I see you listed the campaign as 15-points for abilities.

Yeah, I am going to make it 5th level. That way everyone has some experience under their belt and can make it a little easier to handle getting started. I always come up with great story starters, then they just never work out like I plan.

OK, I have updated the Campaign Info page with some new developments. If anyone has any questions just ask.

I've never encountered it before, and may just have to rebuild, but what happens when you have a floating 1 point to spend on ability scores, before modifiers, but cannot spend it due to the way the points have been allocated? Do you lose that point? Round up? Something else?

Alright, got new profile with 99% of sheet up. Will finish the rest tomorrow. Let me know if anything it out of place! Hope you like it. Time for bed now. Night everyone. :)

@Baoyu Fen What do you mean exactly?

You are talking about point buy with ability scores correct?

What is your current build?

16, 16, 12, 7, 16, 7

And I have 1 floating point.

Str 16 = 15 + 1 @ 4th level (7 points)
Dex 16 = 14 + 2 racial (5 points)
Con 12 = 14 - 2 racial (5 points)
Int 7= 10 - 3 (-4 points)
Wis 16 = 14 + 2 racial (5 points)
Cha 7= 10 - 3 (-4 points)

7 + 5 + 5 - 4 + 5 -4 = 14 points

I have a remainder of 1 point that I cannot spend. Do I just make it disappear? Round up one of the 7s? Re-work the stats until they balance at zero?

Interesting. I didn't even realize that that could happen, I have never seen someone willingly drop 2 stats to 7.

Here is a solution that doesn't sacrifice much. Drop either Dex, Con, or Wis by 1 from 14 to 13 to gain 2 more points and spend the 3 points to raise Str from a 15 to a 16, then use your 4th level raise to put into the stat that you first lowered.

This makes you have the exact same stats with all of your points spent.

nothing says you have to use all your points... I guess... personally I don't like bottoming out my stats like that unless its for RPing purposes so I've never run into this issue

Edit: Ninja'd

Thanks, DM Sgmendez. :)

I lowered Int and Cha to 7 for multiple reasons: he has spent his life focusing on perfecting his combat abilities, to the exclusion of most other things, he is a bit socially awkward- especially around non-tengu and non-martial artists, and in order to play a viable monk/gunslinger, I had to make sure his abilities were up to par. Weird character concept required a weird ability score build this time.

Oh, NP. The numbers, crunch, and mechanics are what I do best.

Yeah, and I understand since you are a Monk you are MAD. Now all you need to do is calm down, LOL.

So for stats I got

10, 14, 14, 16, 10, 12

pretty standard, but i figured for a magic sniper i'll need dex and con.

I'm going for fighter 2/spellslinger 3, and i'm almost done with the sheet, which i'll post here

His Profile will be up shortly I was without internet when I visited my family out of town ...it suked

@Xzaral May I make a suggestion for your Clockwork Panda idea. Out of Cleric and Oracle the one I would go with, that fits the most thematically, is Oracle.

OK, I have placed some of you into the groups. The ones that haven't been placed haven't submitted a character outline yet. Here is the list of those players:

I'm a bandit. Cool. It fits given his backstory. Is his alignment fine or does it need to be changed?

oh, Ancian is actually just an alt of mine, i must have accidentally posted as under him, sorry for the confusion

Sweet Bandits FTw! totally fits his CN alignment ...also Bandits dont have to be good or evil.. heck they can be anything... Im sure history and other stories has taught us this much

btw this is Endoralis

@The Maven Oh, OK. so that means I am waiting on 4 other players instead of 5. Unless some of those are alts of some of the other of you.

As for alignment, don't worry to much about it. It won't be a problem whatever alignment you choose.

and yeah I know that Jin is you.

Oracle can easily be done. I'm going to start putting together a rough draft tonight and try to get at least a rough idea mechanically of where to go with it.

So one thing I am going to need from each of you is an email address, preferably one that can access Google sites. To help preserve some privacy I will give you mine and you can each email me with your paizo username in the subject line.

santiagomendeziv [at] gmail [dot] com

Also I seem to have ran into a pickle... Jin uses the Mysterious Stranger Gunslinger Archtype which gives up Gun Training for the ability to instantly de-jam a gun, BUt since this rule is guns everywhere, He would gain Gun Training at level 1 instead of Gunsmithing (Which is news to me) Therefore, Would I regain Gun Training (albiet only the first level ability) or would I not get it at all?

One last question, and sorry if I missed it, but are firearms bought at 10% of their listed price, as per the "Guns Everywhere" section?

Oh. Wait. I just saw your houserules section on the campaign info page. Armor as DR?

I need to know how that interacts with firearms. I may have to change my character a bit (potentially a lot).

@Jin What I will do is give you the Gun Training at 1st level but the rest are replaced by the Stranger's Fortune ability like normal. In this case I am treating the replacement for Guns are Everywhere as a separate ability.

@Baoyu Yes, firearms are at the 10% cost. As for Armor as DR and the interaction with firearms. I am working on a system that makes it so that guns bypass some of the DR provided by armor and natural armor.

The reason for using the DR and Piecemeal variants is that since firearms are everywhere armor becomes less useful since it no longer provides protection against a common weapon, so to make them still viable I decided that these two variants will do so.

Armor as DR makes it so that armor still has a use against many different types of weapons and can help against some weaker firearms and piecemeal makes it so that you can still gain some protection without giving up much against firearms.

Okay, I still need to buy/finalize equipment, but the profile is otherwise complete.

Figured I'd start with coming up with some racial stats on the clockwork panda first. This is just a rough draft at this point, but here's what I have to start with.

As for Oracle Mystery, I'm currently thinking Heavens at present, though I am looking at Life and Metal as well. The curse is a tad more difficult. I'm thinking about clouded vision at present. I like the 'unable to see but stares at the heavens' idea.

But this is only draft one, looking for ideas while getting ready for sleepy time.

Cardz5000(at)me(dot)com

@ OurLordGloriousGM: Well that is fantastic, it makes my dex seem...worth it especially considering that everything has DR now...woot Now I can finalize these stats and background and the equipment

Note Mage armor becomes Awesome on monks now as it gives them DR