Tarlane's page

This post talks a bit about Skull and Shackles but I don't think it has any real spoilers since it is what starts off the adventure rather than something further on.

Just to toss this out there, in the Skull and Shackles AP the players start out in a scenario not too far from this. The first scenes of the campaign is a result of them being press ganged onto a pirate ship and left with their gear claimed by the captain and stored with the quartermaster.

However, there is a strong suggestion for the DM to make sure that the players are aware of this and to work around it in little ways. For instance, if the player would have a familiar or animal companion, having it come to join them while they are on the boat or be locked in the stores or the like. And things like spell books or something small and important to a class can be smuggled on board.

Generally, a plot point like this can be a lot of fun but probably should be discussed with the players to make sure that everyone is on the same page and ok with that plot, but you may also just be without your spellbook for a couple game days until you are able to regain it somehow.

There can be good opportunity to get in good with your captors to try and have some of your stuff returned. Using one of those precious spells and helping accomplish some work or helping one of the ship mates and making it clear that if you had your book back you could be a valued asset can always do something.

We always joked in my group that someone should make a monk who took dodge > mobility > spring attack, deflect arrows, and spend every other feat on fleet.

Just so he could go running out of nowhere, punch someone in the face and then get far enough back that the enemy couldn't get to him and if they did take a pot shot he could deflect it.

It would be beautiful.

Heh. This topic brings up weird memories. I almost never am a player, I'm generally behind the screen, so I often have some character concepts that I'm really eager to try out and wait for.

Playing an old campaign, fairly low level back in 3.5 I had a character die right at the beginning of a session, but I had been really thinking out making a spell-thief and had the personality and everything else fleshed out in my head, so I had him whipped up and ready quick enough that I was introduced back in about halfway through the game.

The char was an instant big hit, befriending PCs and NPCs and was just way fun as we RPed out some things. I chose to escort one of the NPCs after a bit of carousing and we got jumped. 1 totally botched perception check later and some very lucky rolls on the DMs side and I'm dead in a surprise round. The perception check was the only die I ever touched for the character and I never got to play a spell thief.

On the other hand I suppose its one of my groups amusing moments since its the only time we've ever had someone with two deaths in one session.

No worries, DM. Pain will bond us and make us a cohesive unit.

Something else to take in consideration is that because the group has been press ganged, the pirates are going to be quite cautious about people with any special powers, and its a great way to have the group just be that much more antagonistic with Plugg.

In my game, they didn't disallow magic, however one of the characters was playing a semi-aquatic character who had a swim speed. As soon as his ability in the water came clear, Plugg approached with a ball and chain with the intent of keeping him from leaving the ship.

A rather intense argument sparked up over it that led right to the edge of them coming to blows when Scourge 'helpfully' suggested that if they didn't want to risk him running off his sister would serve as a cabin girl for the officers and remain in the officers quarters.

A quick glance between them, the sister shrugged, and it was agreed. Gave me a good chance to express the severity of the traps on some of the doors to the party before the stumbled into them since she got to see them from behind, let her have a chance to explore a few otherwise off limits parts of the ship, and really gave a good reason for them to hate Plugg and Scourge more than they already do.

Thank you so much for letting me in, it sounds like its going to be a great game. I'm sorry I got quiet over the weekend, that whole wisdom teeth thing didn't go as well as hoped and pretty much had me out of commission and I'm still a little shaky on the thinky-bits. I'll get an alias made for my char along with stats posted up and over on the discussion thread ASAP.

Thanks Maeyan, I appreciate it.

And well wishes to you Cloaked, feel better soon.

Just as a little heads up, I'm getting my wisdom teeth out tomorrow afternoon and don't know how doped up I'll be going into Friday so I may be quiet the next couple days, but I'll be keeping an eye on this thread.

Thanks!

The above mentioned link to a pdf of the character sheet that can be looked at a bit easier while decision are being made. Linked

And its very cool to have some of the players in the game chiming in here, looks like a good group. The other personality samples look good too, if I don't get into this game I'll be keeping an eye on it, it seems like it will be fun to follow.

As a side note, did you guys see they announced SR5 for the summer? I guess they put it up a couple months ago and I had totally missed it.

Cloaked,

You are right! I chose the commlinks in herolab, but didn't notice that when I named them it replaced the actual commlink name. His main one is a Fairlight Caliban running Novetech Navi and holding two levels of response increases. The more obvious one is an erika elite running iris orb straight out of the box. Not so easy to crack as to be suspicious, but if someone wants to get in they can and will see what looks like a normal wage-slave's deck.

I made the char while I should have been working and since he wasn't selected I didn't think to send a copy of the herolab home with myself, but on Monday I'll try and find a better export(or just put up a full pdf of it where you could see it) since I think the bbpost format ends up summarizing a lot. Either way, his info will get fleshed out better if things go forward for him or you have any questions.

Also, I was just nosey and looked at your char poc. Not checking for errors or anything, but it is a cool concept. The down and out character is something that is is popular in fiction but you don't see often enough in actual play. That would be fun for the group.

Alright, I whipped up "False Flag" Frank in herolab just to see what his stats might look like. This was using purely the core book, so I didn't dip into any of the others. Broken into two spoilers below so not to spam the thread.

Whenever you get around to picking characters and stuff, if I get picked I'll got and make all the herolab output in a better format to make it easier to tell what is carried and left at home and all that stuff.

Fluff stuff, Character Ideas and Motivations

Herolab Output of Stats

I've been wanting to get back into a play by post for a while now, was thinking of starting one up myself but the siren song of Shadowrun is hard to resist. I'd be very interested in making a char for this.

My initial concept that sounds awful fun for me would be a decker who has a bit of a thing for conspiracy theories so picked up his skills to find the 'truth' and make sure no one was watching him. Getting into running is a good way to pay the bills, get the best tech and have plenty of opportunities to look at corp computers from the inside.

I'll try and get a more real submission together and up for you soon.

Hey, checking the ceiling is a good idea for every adventurer ever! As you late character learned. ^^

There used to be an old school term for this because of an adventure that had a big cat perched on a ledge right above a door that the players would walk through. I am totally spacing on the exact wording for it, but I used to have a player who whenever he was scouting in a dungeon he would point out that he was 'checking for leopards'.

To get back on topic a bit, my other real method of paranoia comes whenever I play a caster. I love to be a bit obsessive with getting and making scrolls that could be used in any sort of situation no matter how unlikely. I -love- the cyphermages.

Playing in a very urban campaign we broke into a shop that was known for bringing really exotic and unusual goods through it, entering the warehouse we came across a dire-ape with a collar around his throat. The DM looked rather pleased with himself knowing it was going to catch us off guard and then I pointed out that I cast charm animal. He blinked at me and asked how I had that prepped and I pointed out it was one of the scrolls I bought since he gave me free reign in finding first level spells.

Nothing better than being a scroll boy scout.

My groups have only had to deal with a tarrasque once before, it was back in 3.5 during a campaign that was meant to run from 1 all the way up into the epics.

Earlier in the adventure the players had their first experience plane hopping going to a demi-plane of shadows to retrieve an artifact. The item was part of what gave the plane stability, so when they snatched it they had to make a quick get away as the negative energy from the shadowplane itself spilled in and flooded the realm.

Cut to a number of levels later, the material plane is having some rifts opened in it due to the destabilizing effects of a number of planes collapsing(which the characters unwittingly had a part in, see above). One of the rifts awoke the tarrasque and the players hurried to try and stop it amid all the other issues going on. Thinking quickly, the main caster in the group heightened a plane shift to give it a decent save and got lucky in zapping the tarrasque away to the aforementioned plane where it would be taking constant negative levels to keep it down so they could deal with it later.

As a side note, this caster is the same one who touched the artifact that caused the plane to collapse then later hit a demon that was being enveloped by entropy with a wild magic spell that sent it to a random plane and we rolled Nirvana. After that campaign we would use that char's name as a synonym for something getting excessively screwed over. As in 'That demon got Calor-ed.'

Just out of precaution I almost always buy one silver and one cold iron dagger. They are cheap enough to be easy to pick up from first level, but they have a lot of things they are used for.

Totally off topic here, but I saw this quote below and had to answer-

They did horrible things to Plugg and Scourge (And Conchobhar) for it. Horribbbblllle things.

Why do groups dislike Conchobhar so much? I had assumed that my group would love his ridiculous style since it fits with their normal way of being, but one of the guys was getting in good with Rosie and she grumbled a bit about one of his advances and a rivalry has quickly grown between them.

Conchobhar got a good lecture to back off from Rosie, and so to show the he will flirt with whoever he wants the next morning the gnome brought one of the girl's in the group her breakfast(laced with his elixer of love). Naturally, though it caught everyone off guard(including me) our groups goblin announces he is going to grab her biscuit and stuff it in his mouth(she made the mistake of feeding him once and he's like a seagull).

After seeing the goblin googly eyed following her around all day the original instigator of all this decided he was going to get his revenge and waited til the middle of the night and summoned a dire rat to bite the gnome and is now pleased with himself as he starts to see signs of filth fever showing in the gnome. And since this happened the night before the group was supposed to have to go down into the bilges to deal with rats, it worked out really well story wise.

We've only done one session so far so I'm definitely looking forward to seeing where this goes as it builds.

What you are talking about is 'fishgold'. It was first introduced in the Carrion Crown AP, Wake of the Watcher on page 24 and was referenced a few times throughout the book.

I'm coming into this conversation late, but there was a documentary a couple years ago called 'Jiro Dreams of Sushi' which is about a really famous Sushi chef in japan who has dreamed of making the perfect sushi for his whole life. At 85 he's spent years working as a rice cooker before he decided he was ready to move on to the next step of it. He talks about everything in life being about honing your craft to an amazing level.

Jiro Ono: Once you decide on your occupation... you must immerse yourself in your work. You have to fall in love with your work. Never complain about your job. You must dedicate your life to mastering your skill. That's the secret of success... and is the key to being regarded honorably.

You have a farmer with that sort of ideal and you have the high level commoner.

I prefer a simple progression.

Cast wall of stone.
Cast stone to flesh.
Open a butcher shop.

You might find some good suggestions in this thread too, swearing in ways that are specific to golarion so aren't real curses in the real world.

Linkified

If you don't want the Jedi to "overpower" everything, don't let your players have them. Set your game during the Dark Times, where Darth Vader and The Emperor are the only force users operating openly. Yoda and Obi-Wan Kenobi are the only remaining Jedi in the Galaxy, and they are in deep hiding.

I'm just started running a Saga game last weekend that is set during the main part of the inquisition between clone wars and new hope. Jedi aren't totally wiped out yet, but they are being actively hunted.

One of the first scenes saw the players on a station seeing a woman getting attacked by some imperial thugs. Looking around at just how many witnesses were around, the Jedi in the group realized that he'd better not draw attention to himself so he ran over and clocked one of the agents in the mouth with a pair of combat cloves.

Different era's of play do a great job of controlling power, when jedi are in hiding trying to keep their force powers subtle or hidden are important. In legacy era Yuuzhan Vong suddenly flip the strength of force users on their heads. In earlier times jedi are more powerful, but its also a time when people are more aware of their capabilities and that power and because of troubles with the sith you tend to see a lot more governance over how the powers are used to make sure you don't run the risk of 'falling' and the politics of being a jedi mean you are much more likely to be given direction from hire ups.

The further back you go the easier it is for jedi to stand out more often from the rest of the party(though it also becomes more likely to have more of the party be jedi), however if you look to the setting beyond the stats there is a lot of balance.

You could buy extra small animals to confuse enemies.

If the enemies still target your familiar, above all others, then you need a sit down with the DM.

Its not quite directly pertinent to the original question, but we did have a char in my last campaign that had a group of monkeys he kept on leashes running around him dressed in tiny peasant outfits. When they inadvertently died from area effect attacks he would cry for a bit then replace them with some other tiny animals from a bag of tricks and use his tailor skill to fit the clothes for them.

But he was a barbarian rather than someone who had to protect a familiar. He just liked to consider them his serfs since he dressed in glamoured armor that looked like a noble outfit and had a powdered wig.

Teconiel, I actually read a fairly neat thing about an idea someone hand(I don't remember the name to give credit). They were talking about having their players encounter this ancient order of mages who had at one point effectively managed to capture a tarrasque, between magical/starmetal shackles and steady damage to keep it unconscious. They then harvested it, using its skin and organs for components in making magical equipment, keeping it alive so it would steadily 'heal' and they could harvest it further.

It was meant as a sort of moral dilemma for the characters, whether such a thing should be allowed. Even as a force of destruction, the tarrasque still is effectively just an animal. It may need to be stopped, but seeing it taken to be nearly powerless and living in steady torture is pretty strong emotionally.

Did they ever?

In a sort of round about way. In the campaign odd rifts had started opening on the material plane, releasing unusual and powerful beasts(pseudo-natural creatures, lovecraft style horrors, ancient extra-planers, ect) which was how the tarrasque arrived. They discovered that someone was actually destroying planes somehow to unbalance and eventually destroy the multi-verse. So the party spent a while trying to track down the few artifacts that might have the power to actually destroy a plane.

Once they had one of these objects in their protection, they did enough research to make sure that destroying a demi-plane wouldn't actually do more damage to the multi-verse and effectively nuked the plane the tarrasque was trapped on.

It was my groups only foray into epic play, and while the rules didn't really suit us, we had a lot of fun with the high level story.

We played a long running campaign(went from 1st all the way up into epic) back into 3.5. When they were in their upper teens, the group had to travel to plane travel a bit and went to a demi-plane that bordered on the plane of shadows. Before they left they took an artifact that was keeping the stability of the realm intact, so they had to pop back quickly to the material realm quickly amid negative energy flooding the landscape.

Fast forward a few levels and the group had to face a tarrasque and after managing to knock it unconscious briefly, they came up with the idea to plane shift it to that realm, counting on the constant negative energy/levels to keep it immobile until they could come up with a way to more thoroughly deal with its threat.

For a free possibility to try out, you might want to look at Roll20. Its a beta program at the moment, but mostly because it is still being expanded on. However, its fully functional and quite amazing.

They have a video up on youtube that shows things from a DM side, giving a walkthrough on about how every works and if you have 10 minutes it is worth checking out.

Video

mmmm a steak spell, with metamagicked bbq sauce

Steak Spell: Wall of Stone > Stone to Flesh > Burning Hands or Fireball to taste.

Congrats again to all you folk who are in. Have a lot of fun!

Ynaeve, you were the one Derith was pestering as well.

Total side note, but I just peeked at your profile Oleg and its really awesomely done. Normally I just end up using Herolabs layout, but having the notes where traits and stuff interact the way you do is really useful.

Derith nods towards the bartender appreciatively. "Just some water would be enough, thank you." He tilts his head a bit, still watching the others as someone takes up the challenge, the various mixed bloods. He had seen such things in Absalom of course, but never in such a concentration. Obviously he wasn't alone in his thoughts to find what is happening here.

He makes note of most of those here, picking out the various warriors and athletic builds of those here. However, he spots Ynaeve and seems curious by her. She's quiet, not participating in the various 'contests' be it simply bragging or drinking, and is clearly making her own observations. Finally his curiosity is peeked and he pushes away from the wall to move over to her, slipping into a chair beside her. "You don't look like most of the rabble here. What brings you to so dangerous a place?"

Derith sits off the side of the bar, wearing loose fitting light clothing. He's a human of average height, though he looks to be in good shape. His shaved head has the beginnings of stubble as his eyes move from one to the next within the tavern, judging and trying to take them all in.

Like the pale woman, he too raises a hand in the offer of a drinking contest. "I'm sure that seeing how many people we can leave passed out on the floor would be enjoyable, but I would rather not share control of myself with a distillery."

All this talk of eliminating the competition sounds a bit too overt. Need to be more sneaky. Blackmail works much better. How many people have 'bowed out' now?

Indeed, good luck to all of you, there definitely were a lot of good submissions in here.

I haven't made a alias for Derith yet, since I don't know if I'm in the game or not, so I am reposting his character sheet here with the requested note about stats at the bottom.

Char Sheet

Stat notes(I used hero lab to make these)

GM wrote:

Modified Focus/Foible 
25 point buy 
1 stat must be 17 or higher before racial modifiers and 1 must be 9 or lower - minimum is 7 after racial modifiers and I expect you to play a low score (ugly, weak, clumsy, bad decision maker, etc).

Wow this part is throwing me for a loop, since I tend to evenly distribute my points as so I don't have a weak point, and am not power gaming on min-maxing.

I'll see What I come up with for stats.

I actually mentioned that in one of my notes to the DM, Azure, it threw me off since my characters 'thing' is that he wants to try and be balanced in all things, having a pretty big weak(and heavily favored) spot seemed to be odd for him.

However, I think it actually ended up making the character more interesting. For my character, his pursuit of perfection can have him come off a little pompous and make it harder to relate to others, something which is reflected in those stats and can be a growth point throughout the game.

Limitations can sometimes make for deeper characters.

If we are all chiming in, I'm still around and quite interested myself. Good luck on running the two games, I've done that before and it can be really rewarding and fun seeing how the two different groups differ in going through the story, but it can be a good chunk of work too.

Just posting to say I'm still alive out here and keeping an eye on the thread though there hasn't been anything asked which would have required me posting in.

I also wanted to say hey to Poor Wandering One there. We've had a couple false starts on PbPs, though they didn't last he's a great player.

Whoever gets in, this looks like its going to be a great game so good luck to you all.

-Tarlane

Congrats all who got in. It looks like its going to be a good game so have fun!

Tarlane - I'm okay with the Scroll master Archetype but one concern might be that this is a water based campaign, which could result in some damage to your primary weapons if they are paper or parchment during storms or if you end up in the water. Cloth would be okay.

I definitely appreciate the thoughts. I had considered the fact and had included both two scroll cases and a waterproof bag in my equipment, but honestly while I like the flavor of it all, if the scrolls are actually ever in use as my primary weapon(meaning I am actually in melee) we are probably in an awful lot of trouble anyway. However, since I already have picked up both cyphermage feats and the cyphermage trait, I think I'm just going to drop scrollmaster. Its probably more trouble than its worth, I already have the flavor and having a bit more casting via the arcane bond is likely much more useful.

As for allies and enemies, I took the cyphermage backer trait which should give me a good built in ally. I suspect it will never actually be a useful trait in the campaign(it is based on Riddleport and I have no idea if we ever go there), but I thought it would represent the wizard I apprenticed to before I set out on my own who has remained a friend.

I had been rolling around in my head who might make sense to be an enemy to him and I was thinking that he may have made an enemy of the person who commandeered the ship he arrived at port peril on. While he is willing to be a bit fast and loose with morals on the sea, he is one to be true to his word. When the ship he arrived on was claimed to pay off its captain's debt, the crew may have been 'encouraged' to continue work under its new owner. Seeing that as betraying the man he signed on to work under, his delivery to the port may have been less being left behind and more diving overboard and swimming to shore to avoid being keelhauled for refusing the rule of the new captain. That can be adjusted however needed if there is a ship we may encounter later that fits the bill.

Updated Character(basically just with scrollmaster removed)

As mentioned, I finished whipping up my character. Going to be gone for a few hours, but hope you enjoy him. I can flesh out the background more if you'd like and add some more specific allies and rivals from his past as you mentioned in the character creation document once I get back.

As mentioned, him being a scrollmaster is hardly necessary for who he is, I just thought it was a nice flavor touch. Its in the ultimate magic if you actually want to look at the archetype. Since I lose arcane bond and am not built to be a front line fighter it probably actually weakens me a bit unless we make it to 10th level(which is forever in a pbp!) so let me know if its a concern in either direction of the power scale.

Character

.

Since I usually GM for my rl group, I have a ton of character concepts xD

I feel you there, GA. Its rough being the GM all the time and getting all kinds of ideas and having to work to be able to fit them in.

I'd love to toss myself in for this if I could. It looks to be an amazing campaign, I had been hoping to get someone in my tabletop group to run it, though the other guy who DMs is moving away so this might be a great shot to try the campaign.

I've had an itch to play a wizard again for a bit now and had been thinking this could be a great campaign for it. Someone who focuses a lot of having scrolls for preparedness. I figure he would do well as first mate, better at giving advice than directing things, however something like quartermaster would work well since he had practice as a scribe.

He'll be a human wizard. I am tossing back and forth the idea of the scrollmaster archetype just because I love the imagery of it, but will probably just be plain wizard.

I'm a pretty experienced player(read old-fogey to RP) though I DM far more than I run a character. I've been away from the boards for a while, but am back in full force now and am quite active. I am able to be online and work and so can post throughout the days as long as nothing is actively broken, Saturday is the one day I normally will only be able to check the boards either in the early morning or late night(PST) because of my home game.

I think the tactical parts of gaming are important and I enjoy the combat, but my real love is the interaction between characters and NPCs and building upon them. My char looks to be pretty team focused, ready for any situation type of caster with his spell list leaning towards battlefield control, then buffing, before being a damager. He'll be friendly and chatty but has spent enough time with his nose in books that he is much more likely to try and be an adviser than actually take a direct leadership role.

Background

I'll have an actual character sheet up for you to look at some point today.

Derith Ralomen

Character Sheet

Fluff

Alright GM, Since you said to go all in on one char instead of giving a couple options, here is the statblock for Guy Gibson.

Really awesome post. I've had a character concept rolling around in my head for quite a while that could be a lot of fun with this game. I'll get a full submission soon, but I wanted to give a bit of a quick summary to announce interest.

I was looking to play a Human Monk(Master of Many Styles) archetype. I see him as a follower of Irori who seeks to mimic the enlightened perfection his God found by understanding the best traits of various beings(thus his varied styles).

Actual treasure would be less important to him for motivation than gathering knowledge and testing his own skill and thus becoming better, though he is aware that the goods he may gain in the dungeon will also serve him in his quest to grow.

As a player, I work online and am able to be around and active most of the days with small breaks for meetings of when I have to put out a fire. The only day I am not a pretty steady poster is Saturday, because of my own in person game, so I will only be able to post in the early morning/late night. If it makes a difference to you, I have put myself in for one other PbP, though there have been a lot of people trying to join it so I am unsure if I'll be in or not.

I have read through the classic ToEE module, but that was not long after it came out and I have very little memory of it. I've also played through the PC game several times so I am more aware of that aspect of the story.

I'll have an actual character, backstory, and answer to your various questions up at some point tonight for your consideration.

Thanks,

-Tarlane

I re-skimmed through the players guide and thought I would add a few more details to the backgrounds above along with the campaign trait that I would pick for either character. I'll still get actual stats up for them soon.

Guy

Elias

Edit: Awesome post Buggula, very useful in seeing who is around.

I realize that we have a lot of people tossing their hat's in the ring for this so the slots might already be full up, but I wanted to post some idea's and see how they are received. I had worked up these ideas for Jade Regent actually when it looked like a friend was going to run it in person, but unfortunately he's going to be moving before we get the chance so maybe they will see some life in a PbP.

(I'll get information on who he is allies and enemies with in the caravan and a bit more details up when I fully make the chars tonight. If you like either one of them, I'm more than happy to write up real backgrounds.)

Guy Gibson CG Human Rogue

Elias N Elven Wizard

In Venezuela the Catatumbo river has a section where a lightning storm goes on for most of the year and is often pretty crazy. They talk about most years there being a thunder storm between 160-200 days a year with normally about 20,000 strikes a night. Its pretty amazing.

Pretty

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