Lothar Narda |
Fine by me. I'm trying to catch up on the Daredevil Netflix series, Arslan Senki, Agents of SHIELD, and The Blacklist. And that's just off the top of my head, because I'm sure there's more I've missed.
Something I am curious about, though... is it officially just the three of us now? I had hoped that Calinder would have returned, but if that's not to be... Well, no point dwelling on it, I suppose. In the meantime, what are we going to do? I've already been looking at retraining Lothar to bring him more in line with being on the frontline (like dropping the bard levels to take on brawler with the Winding Path Renegade and Snakebite Striker archetypes). I'm willing to do my part, pull my weight as it were, to keep this going and if that means changing Lothar up some, then that's what I'll do.
Rhasadilara Goldenbough |
I did a little digging on his profile. The only posts I see after 2013 are as Calindar and the last one was early last December. He never replied to my PM, so I'm concerned that he may not be around any more.
I'm open to modifying Rhasadilara as well, of course. I'm concerned that if we go forward without a fourth character, we will be short-handed, let alone going forward without a cleric.
Do we want to try to recruit a player?
Rhasadilara Goldenbough |
It sounds like there's a question to be asked first - do we want to continue forward with this? I know I'm largely responsible for bringing it back from the dead, but if we agree it's not worth it, I can walk away at peace knowing that we called it a day on purpose rather than letting it fade away...
Rhasadilara Goldenbough |
I wish to continue. Rhasa can be redesigned, but you know - she's already becoming more of a front-liner with the changes I'm phasing in. Maybe you don't need to rewrite Lothar as a front-liner as much - I'm working toward her being a ranged threat while the foe is at range, but stepping up with the two-handed delivery when they close.
She has no spells and no healing and no animal companion, so there are definite gaps between her and a standard ranger.
Rhasadilara Goldenbough |
Lothar, if I am developing as a front-liner (or if our Dear DM is will to let us do a bit of re-write so she can make all the necessary changes at once), what would you do different/what would you see your role as?
Barnabus, what would your plans be going forward? Would you need to change anything?
I'm wondering if we would be need to be recruiting a dedicated healer or if that's a role that would be shared among the party.
Note that I'm open to other changes for Rhasa other than her planned changes to the 'switch hitter' build.
Lothar Narda |
I'm not sure what the role would be. The way I see it, Lothar has been in a support role from the beginning, specifically spellcasting and close quarter combat. Spellcasting has never been a thing I've enjoyed doing. I've always been a melee fighting kind of guy and I seem to have more fun when engaged in that activity. So for me, I would want to drop the bard levels from Lothar and focus on strengthening his CQC. When I talked to the DM privately, the goal was to go full on ninja. But since then, I've had more time to think about it. Were I to do it all over, given the options available now, I would have set Lothar's levels in slayer (stygian slayer) 3 and brawler (snakebite striker, winding path renegade) 2. This would give him the base attack progression and hit points to take on a frontline role while still being able to provide a support (stealth) role. "Magician" would be more of a call-back to his assassin days with the Anaphexia (I'd still have to explain why Lothar has his tongue, but that may or may not have something to do with his being found by the temple of Irori).
Rhasadilara Goldenbough |
Well, Rhasa's build plan should make her a solid melee or ranged combatant and she has a good skill set. If a rewrite is in the cards, I just need to adjust some feats and one ability score (Strength, to take advantage of Power Attack).
If I was going to delve deeper and make more changes, I would be looking at the hunter class, but probably with the same 'switch hitter' concept. I haven't looked close to see if it is viable, so it might not be that attractive to me. And we wouldn't really need another melee combatant (my hunter pet) if you are focused on melee.
Lothar Narda |
Just thinking out loud to myself, but I felt the need to post more of a legitimate post than the OOC one I did, so here it is:
Well... I still want to retain some flexibility for Lothar. He was an assassin in service to Norgorber, so 2 levels of slayer would be enough to represent that (perhaps he was once an executioner, but, due to his turn to Irori and the alignment change that came with it, is no longer). His acceptance of Irori leads to his training, but that inherent sense of recklessness (his low Wisdom) precludes his becoming an actual monk. This is where the brawler levels would come into play of course, though I'm thinking of just focusing on the winding path renegade (going snakebite striker means that he'd not be able to take advantage of the monk moves ability, which opens up some pretty cool action beats using martial familiarity). I'm thinking the mystery he'd study as part of his school focus would be the unfolding wind (increased range increment with ranged weapons, Deflect Arrows bonus feat plus super leap).
Lothar Narda |
That's cool. I like that you have in-world flavor to explain the choices and why different classes are part of his character makeup.
Thanks. I try to suss these things out when I create characters for a setting, so it's not an easy habit to break.
I'm still new to the whole retraining rules, so there's some things I need help with. This is assuming of course that the DM has no problem with Lothar undergoing this extensive a rebuild. I'd have to figure out what it would all entail and how much it would cost, because I'm pretty sure it'll be an expensive endeavor to undertake.
Lothar Narda |
25 days to abandon the magician archetype... cost: 500 gp
14 days to retrain the bard levels into slayer... cost: 280 gp
15 days to retrain the ninja levels into brawler... cost: 450 gp
Total retraining time required: 54 days
Total costs: 1,230 gp
That's... a bit more than I was expecting. Of course, I could just ignore the archetype abandoning aspect of retraining, thereby saving 500 gp as well as reducing the number of sessions to two. This would still cost Lothar nearly a month of retraining and 730 gp.
Rhasadilara Goldenbough |
Looking at retraining for Rhasa, she needs to reassign the fourth-level ability increase, her second-level combat style feat choice, and her first-level feat.
First-level feat: Point-Blank Shot becomes Quick Draw
5 days, 250 gp (assuming standard pricing)
Second-level feat: becomes Rapid Shot (I don't remember what the original feat was - I 'lost' access to it when I leveled up to fifth.
5 days, 250 gp (unless I've paid sufficiently by giving up a feat for a level)
Ability score increase: Assign a bump to Strength instead of Dexterity
5 days, 250 gp
The changes reflect an increased focus on her part on her sword rather than her bow, bringing it to bear quickly when the enemy closes and being able to deliver devastating blows when they do.
Fortunately, she's not trying to move class levels around - that's quickly expensive.
Rhasadilara Goldenbough |
Excellent, thanks! Would it be reasonable to say we retire to the settlement for a month of resting/planning/retraining before we move forward with the adventure? I saw a month to allow Lothar his 29 days of retraining. Rhasadilara and Barnabus would be available to act on the part of the fledgling nation for much of that time, along with our departed allies - perhaps one of them will choose to rejoin us, but I am not holding out hope - but that allows our dear GM to move the story forward or set the next scene if she wishes while Lothar gives us a fantastic exposition on the retraining regimen he goes through. (No pressure!)
And some other questions:
Should we be recruiting a healer, incorporate an NPC, something else?
Should we continue with exploration mode or is it time to let the GM drive the story forward? IIRC, not all of the adventure path is actually sandbox, right?
Lothar Narda |
I'm actually looking at integrating Lothar's retraining with Seth's training (with more of a focus on the brawler side of things than the slayer; he's not interested in turning his protege into a killing machine, after all). I'll do my best to come up with something worth while for a post.
Lothar Narda |
I want to kick myself now. Lothar doesn't have trapfinding as an ability, but he did have Disable Device as a skill. I could have made a roll to disarm it. So to make myself feel better, I'll roll it and the DM can tell me if I would have failed the check or not.
Disable Device: 1d20 + 8 ⇒ (8) + 8 = 16
Lothar Narda |
I think we need to recruit another player, specifically a divine caster. Not necessarily a cleric, but definitely something with more healing than we currently have access to at the moment. As it stands now, once Rhasa and Lothar undergo their respective rebuilds, the party will be martial heavy with one arcane caster. A more dedicated healer will balance things out.
Barnabus |
Rather than a full public recruitment thread it might be better to recruit out of other games/gamers that we know on the boards right now.(some who have a consistent history...)
I could easily post into some of my game discussion thread and see who answers, or send a private message to some people.
I keep saying I, or one of you other guys could do the same.
If their is someone you might want to invite to a private party?
Lothar Narda |
I have no one in particular that I want to play with us.
Asking for a 5th level divine caster is probably the best way to go about recruiting. Rhasa pretty much nailed it with her reasoning. So long as they can provide more healing than what we currently have, it's all good as far as I'm concerned.
Are we going back to the town or Oleg's? Trying to ascertain that before making a post in the campaign thread.
Lothar Narda |
Well... by all means, let us use Sunset to get both our bearings and current location.
I don't think he's too fond of me, though...
Looks to Barnabus to provide confirmation....