Discuss, say hi. I will check over everyone's character sheet again. Gameplay is open for roleplay while everyone gets settled in.
Also if you are able to use roll 20 then I have put a player link in the campaign tab. If not for some reason don't worry. I shall be uploading screenshots so everyone can see what's going on. If there is an image of your character you would like me to use then link it here for me as well.
Hello People.
I can use Roll20 at home, though I often have trouble at work. It's probably best to use the game avatars on the maps so that we can recognize each other easier.
Reporting in.
Hi Talia! Looks like these characters are in yet another game together. Hopefully this one will last longer than the other one did.
Gm, at the moment I have Rose's background written so that she wasn't one of the escapees from branderscar.
Do you want me to keep that, or should I have been in the prison with them?
If you want me in the prison, would it be alright Rose was part of the Cardinal's plan, and got herself captured on purpose so she could be an "inside man" to help facilitate the escape?
You don't need to change anything in your backstory. You can have been with Tiadora to meet them when they arrived at the manor. Now you have a room in the same wing as the others for these three days.
The Doctor dotting in (Unfortunately both "Doctor" and "The Doctor" were taken as aliases).
I know in the initial character creation there was some mention of some restrictions on multi-classing/prestige classes. I'm planning for the non-alchemist half of his build to be something like Fighter (Lore Warden) 14/Gunslinger 5, so I'm wondering if that will effect that at all or if that means I should start taking the fighter levels first instead of gunslinger.
I'm also still having trouble coming up with a story feat. None of the mechanics of the ones I looked through on d20pfsrd especially appealed to me.
You can have 1 other class that you are allowed to multi class or prestige class in. Fighter or gunslinger first doesn't matter.
I'm thinking of creating one based on your drug trafficking past. Something giving you black market connections and the ability to acquire poisons and other illegal items at a discount. If that sounds alright or you have other ideas let me know.
I just found this a little bit funny that I seem to have picked an entirely human party. Both the Aasimar and the Tiefling have the corresponding racial trail to appear human with no trouble.
Oh! Thanks for picking me! I... forgot to finish updating this character, I guess I got busy or something.
The +1 prepared spell per level—is that an extra spellbook spell, or an extra spell memorized?
As for story feats—I think Foeslayer, Gruesome Butcher, and Vengeance all make the most sense, but they're also pretty similar both thematically and mechanically.
That would be a spell that you have in your spellbook.
Foeslayer against Talingardian soldiers since they are the ones that captured you?
Sounds good! And, like, killed his family and stuff
I don't remember inviting Martin hahah
Oh no! Looks like I have another alias with a similar name and picked the wrong one. This is what I get for having played like 3 dozen characters oops.
This is what I get for having played like 3 dozen characters oops.
Oh, you sweet summer child. :)
Checking in, thanks for picking me!
Indeed, having the Pass for Human trait does help. Plus Kelvar knows a thing or two about Disguises, which will also help.
As for fixing allies whose eyes are broken, I'll kindly thank you to leave my eyes alone. I can get Darkvision permanently cast on me for cheaper than either Fleshwarping or piercings.
Glad everyone made it here. Let the way of the wicked be walked!
Yes, but a permanent spell can be dispelled when you need it the most. We owe it to Asmodeus to purge ourselves of weakness. :)
Let's go be bad guys!
You can have 1 other class that you are allowed to multi class or prestige class in. Fighter or gunslinger first doesn't matter.
I'm thinking of creating one based on your drug trafficking past. Something giving you black market connections and the ability to acquire poisons and other illegal items at a discount. If that sounds alright or you have other ideas let me know.
Sounds good. I hadn't particularly planned on using poisons, but I guess I may as well since I'm not going to trade away the alchemist poison abilities. And he'll probably need "reagents" aka drugs when he starts trying to secretly dose people.
Rose has Disable Device, but her Perception is terrible.
Who has good eyes and wants to be on point with me?
You can have 1 other class that you are allowed to multi class or prestige class in. Fighter or gunslinger first doesn't matter.
I'm thinking of creating one based on your drug trafficking past. Something giving you black market connections and the ability to acquire poisons and other illegal items at a discount. If that sounds alright or you have other ideas let me know.
GM, I'd like to petition for the use of the Affliction rules. They make diseases and poisons way more interesting and a bit more potent. It also allows GMs and Players to easily make custom poisons, which is very cool.
Kelvar is pretty perceptive, and as another front liner, it would make sense for me to be up front with you.
Sounds good. Let's do this.
I looked it over and afflictions are permitted. Especially in an evil campaign, a way to make poisons and the like more viable and interesting is a yes from me.
Hey Villains, do you guys prefer to roll your own saves for things or should I roll for you to speed things up?
I don't have any abilities that would allow a reroll/grant bonuses that would otherwise affect saves, so I'd prefer you to roll them. Though if I ever gain such an ability, I may want to come up with a way that I could use it without using hind-sight knowledge, if that makes sense.
I don't mind you rolling things and giving us the results.
The other option would be to give us the DCs and put the "if you fail" stuff in a spoiler. Then we can just react accordingly when we roll.
Couple of questions for the party:
1) What are people's party rolls, especially in combat? It looks to me like most people are melee maybe? But I'm also terrible at looking at crunch and getting an overall picture of the character. I'm planning on being ranged, but I really see the Doctor as more of a support character. He will probably also eventually pick up all of the knowledges.
2) Are there any requests for alchemist spells that I should pick up in the future? I have the infusion discovery for a reason. On a related note, the Doctor and Marvin should get friendly, so he can copy Enlarge Person from his spell book. In retrospect, I'm not sure why I didn't choose it already as it seems like a pretty obvious buff.
Also, just a heads up, because he's a sadist the Doctor laces most of his extracts/potions/whatever with a drug whose only affect is that it causes an excruciating amount of pain (pain in the fluff sense, not in the actual damage sense). Similarly I plan to fluff his healing bombs (when he gets them) as very painful. If you as a player are extremely opposed to this idea but still wish to reap the benefits, I am open to discussing.
In combat, Rose is a sneaky ambusher and a tanky frontliner.
As for spells, I'm a big fan of Adhesive Spittle. Tanglefoot Bags are awesome. Tanglefoot bags with better range and a DC based on the caster's intelligence are even better.
In my opinion, Longarm is better than Enlarge person due to Large making you easier to hit.
Also, Targeted Bomb Admixture is a must for any bomb-slinger.
As a player, I really prefer to play combat in such a way that keeps it from becoming a big tangled mess. I know what a pain in the ass that is for healers and AoE blasters to try to be effective when the enemies and allies are all mixed together.
I know Pathfinder combat has an unfortunate tendency to become a chaotic free-for-all. It doesn't have to be though. I'm hoping Kevlar, Marvin and I can agree to act as a three person wall as much as possible and be willing to play defensive and let the enemies come to us.
Hmm. Viscous Spittle is decent as a level 1 spell, but becomes irrelevant pretty quickly. Targeted Bomb Admixture, on the other hand, gets much better once you hit Combine Extracts. (And one of those spells that really shines on a mythic alchemist, since they can drink two buffs per round as a swift action while still attacking as normal). I actually helped the Doctor bounce around ideas a bit; the character changes somewhat at higher levels, with AoE healing and things like Crossbow Mastery allowing alchemist's fire to act as all-day bombs.
* * *
Marvin is more or less a melee bludgeoner for a few levels. Assuming we get somewhere, though, he'll be picking up witch hexes like Flight and Prehensile Hair; later, Anaconda's Coils etc. will allow him to effectively strangle people at range with his hair. Combined with a Brawler's ability to pick up combat maneuvers varying by encounter, and a variety of curse effects, this should make him into a bit more of a disabler etc.
You are going to fly around and strangle people... with your beard...
You're a weird dude, Marv.
I actually helped the Doctor bounce around ideas a bit; the character changes somewhat at higher levels, with AoE healing and things like Crossbow Mastery allowing alchemist's fire to act as all-day bombs.
That's pretty sweet.
Doc, have you looked at the Grenadier archetype? The Alchemical Weapon ability would allow you to add Alchemical weapon effects to your crossbow bolts. At 6th level it becomes a Swift action, which makes it pretty fantastic.
The best part about it is that your bombs count as weapons, so you could essentially add alchemist fire or tanglefoot bombs to your bomb. (Tangleburn bags are my favorite alchemical weapon)
With the Explosive Missile discovery, you could add an alchemical weapon to a bomb, and then add the bomb to your crossbow bolt.
Oh, it's better than that (though tangle fire is neat!). Launching crossbows, combined with enough crossbow feats, allow the use of alchemical ammo at the same rate as regular ammo. Essentially it's similar to Fast Bombs, only using Alchemist's Fire (though Fast Bombs lets you do it with bombs). It's a neat way to add versatility to an alchemist, at the cost of either devoting a few levels (or a gestalt side) to mastering the crossbow.
* * *
And good ol' Marvin the Mustache Strangler has actually featured in a few aborted gestalt WotW games at this point. He never seems to get too much further than this (I've gotten to the beard-fu, but not the flying part before), which is why I'm trying to be careful about how much he talks during the trials.
Also wait a minute, I'm talking to Doomed Hero. Are you telling me you've never read through the list of witch hexes and thought "my next character needs to be a flying beard-murderer"?
(Though if you want to go for "melee wall" party tactics, I'm happy to use my flexibility in a few levels to set up improved/binding ki throw tactics, which with combat reflexes should allow me to throw enemies into easily-targeted piles with my beard. Kelvar appears well-set-up to be part of a shield wall too, though Talia appears to be our highest AC character; and all five of us appear set up to throw down our own unique combat buffs)
Considering my plan for Kelvar's fighting style is to be a "sword"-and-board two-weapon fighter (replace sword with whatever one-handed melee weapon happens to be my best or most useful in a given situation), I don't see any problem with being part of a shield wall. It certainly fits my plan the most, since I'm not exactly going to be channeling AoE heals.
Unless everyone becomes undead. Then I can channel AoE heals.
The flying beard murder thing never really grabbed me. Without Gestalt it isn't really viable because by the time you have all the abilities to make it really work come online, you've fallen behind in the numbers race because you're a caster who would probably be better off making the enemies save-or-die than trying (and usually failing) to choke them.
Also, for my general tastes the thematic idea is built for comedy. I'm all for comedy concepts in the right game. It tends to be one of those things that is best discussed beforehand though. (When one person is playing a grim and gritty soldier with PTSD and another is playing a summoner who only ever summons Loony Toons characters, it's pretty clear these people have very different ideas about the story being told.)
I've used the Hair-hex twice before in non-silly games. The first, we agreed that the "hair" could be reflavored as "glowing telekinetic strands." The second was as a scarred witch doctor who worshipped a Cthulhu-like god. His "hair" was actually the predator-style dreadlocks coming off the back of his mask.
That said, I admit I've always wanted to use the same mechanics to play a Grippli tongue-grappler.
It all depends on how the themes are approached. Any mechanics can be made silly or serious with the right descriptive elements.
Talia is based on the idea of a Sith. Powerful in melee, highly mobile, hard hitting, a few extra tricks. She's god good defense that let her dodge a lot of attacks. At 6th, she's going for Elocater and will be running on walls and ceilings. she's stealthy and one of her powers increases it a lot.
I see her as being the person that moves past the front line to attack the enemy's spellcasters and getting them to pull back.
She'll handle painful extracts as long as they don't penalize her in game. I look forward to roleplaying it out.
As for extracts, I agree that Long Arm is better for me than Enlarge Person. Strength doesn't do anything for me. Everything is Wisdom-based for her. Other than that she's pretty basic. Healing, barkskin, haste, etc.
Huh, but one of the biggest advantages of Psychic Warrior is the ability to go huge as a swift action. Oh well.
Also, I think the difference between hair-murdering comedy/vs seriousness is whether you're doing silly hair kung-fu or just straight up killing people in incomprehensibly frightening ways?
I don't know. I think placement is a pretty important distinction between comedy and not comedy.
There's a Marvel character called Omega Red. His super power is that he has metal tentacles that extend from his hands which grapple, choke and drain the life out of people. He's a scary dude. Even if all his abilities were exactly the same, if one of his tentacles was coming out of his forehead and the other was coming out of his butt he'd be a lot less scary.
I kinda think it's the same with your power set. If you were strangling people with your nose hair or your eyebrows it would be really hard not to laugh no matter how good you were at murdering people.
Hmm, interesting about long arm vs enlarge person. Although at later levels I could combine enlarge person with shield for extra reach, damage (except for Talia), AND AC. Though it looks like Rose and Kelvar already have a shield bonus, so it wouldn't be as good for the people who seem Str focused.
I think I have looked over the grenadier archetype, though I don't remember why exactly I didn't go for it. It might have been before I found out abundant ammunition had been errata'd to not work with poison, so I was more interested in that. And I suppose it would free up my precise bombs discovery, so if I swapped it out right now (not even sure if I can or if I'd need to retrain), I could grab a new one to have. I'll think about it over the weekend when I start trying to map out some of my higher levels/when I'm less tired.
The annihilation arrow looks fun. But also rather pricy.
I'm a pretty flexible DM. If there's something about your character that you don't like and wish to change then I will give you a chance to change it without paying retraining costs(one time). Not yet, so you've got time to think about it but after you've completed the lessons you'll have a bit of in game downtime.
Hmm. I'm actually thinking of dropping the Strangler archetype. It's right there in my character name, but... it doesn't really add much to brawler, and it does cost me a feat.
Huh, but one of the biggest advantages of Psychic Warrior is the ability to go huge as a swift action. Oh well.
*rolls eyes* men and their obsession with size.
Seriously, this wouldn't happen until 14th level, or 17th with my progression. I could pick up the power later. hmmm... now that I think about it, I could spend a feat to do this at 13th. Still a long way away, and it's still only trading AC for reach.
Since this is a part of the story I'm familiar with, I'm going to play dumb and have Rose take a supporting role and let other folks take the lead on the puzzles.
I'm familiar with this part as well, which is why I'm trying to avoid doing too much.
Heh yep. And no full arcane casters means nobody with elemental damage cantrips.