Hello and welcome players!
The link to our Roll20 gameplay page is posted above under the campaign description. You'll need to sign up for a roll20 account if you don't have one (it's free and easy).
At this time please introduce yourselves and let's take some time to get to know each other. Also feel free to edit your characters and their "crunch" if you like. As I mentioned in recruitment, if you'd like to take a third, additional trait, you may do say, subject to my approval of a chosen drawback.
I'll give everyone a couple of days to finish up while I get my ducks in a row, and the game will officially begin later this week (probably Wed. evening or Thurs. morning).
I'll also be lurking on Roll20 this morning and afternoon, as I'm able, to live chat with ya'll. Note that Roll20 allows audio/video chat, but I never use that feature.
Hello everyone! I am very excited to be in this game, I've been wanting to play this AP for a while and it looks like we have a worthy cast of characters for it.
About me: I'm 35, working in video games development (they make it, I break it) and living in the Netherlands, although I am not actually Dutch. I started with tabletop RPGs way back, before D&D had a third edition, switched to Pathfinder as my preferred system a few years ago. I also enjoy White Wolf's Exalted system and very recently I started looking into Numenera. I am not very good at optimized builds and it's the first time I play a shaman, so if you have suggestions on my crunch please let me know.
Also, kitties.
Yazi's crunch: At this point she is built with a debuffing role in mind, but if we find that a buffing/healing role is needed more I can easily swap things around to achieve that.
I'm Kittenmancer on Roll20.
Hey, thanks for the invite. I see two faces of people I've worked with before, maybe it will work out this time.
The others, it's good to meet you. I've read your backgrounds, and it's quite possible that anyone with a decent Knowledge local will know of Calcedon, as he's a minor celebrity in town. Cal will be a face man as well as a buffer with Inspire Courage and Good Hope and Haste and fun things like that. So Yazi, you go with the debuffing, that will work great.
Personally, I'm 36, I'm happily married with 4 kids (with one in the oven), 2 jobs, and I live somewhere in Michigan. I enjoy table top and pathfinder in particular. I wrote three guides for prestige classes including the fairly popular Dragon Disciple guide and have spent a fair amount of time learning system mastery and optimization, a fair amount of which I ignore when I have a cool concept. I have let such things fall into disrepair lately, due to increasing demands on my time, but I really want to give Calcedon another run at success. I really enjoy him as a character and I'd like to see him come into his own.
Woohoo! Mouse lives again! :D She's been one of my favorite characters so far - I'm excited that she gets to have another go. She's building to be as versatile as possible, using mostly unarmed/shield strikes and maneuvers in combat.
Don't worry, Yazi - I'm not much of one for hyper-optimized builds, either. As Cal said, I know plenty; I just ignore whatever I need to to make my character come alive. ;) I've seen some excellent shaman played before, and both my husband and I are playing around with them in different games right now, so I'll hopefully be able to lend a hand as needed. But really, they're pretty hard to mess up - between hexes, ninth-level spellcasting and 3/4 BAB, it's unsurprisingly not difficult to find some way you can contribute, usually.
A question about conventions: Yazi, I know it's customary for Shoanti to go by their adult, earned names rather than their birth names in a completely Shoanti setting, but it's a habit that they sometimes fall away from in more "civilized" settings. Will she prefer "Yaziyah" or "Speaks For The Dead"? (Mouse has no idea about this dichotomy, despite the fact that her father, who she's never met, actually was Shoanti; she'll refer to you however you introduce yourself. I just figured I'd ask.)
As for me the player, I'm apparently the young'un so far at 27 and work nights in security (which means the bulk of my posts are going to be in the middle of the night - it's actually unusual for me to be posting now). I've only played tabletop for about two years, and Pathfinder is the only system I have extensive experience in - I played a session of Mage: the Ascension once and I've learned 3.5 by virtue of my IRL group being half grognards, but that's about it for other experience. I use the term "grognard" highly lovingly, by the way - our GM sees it as a compliment. ;)
I love Mouse! The character and avatar remind me of a Dutch kickboxer and MMA fighter - Germaine de Randamie.
As to how Yazi prefers to be addressed - for fellow Shoanti or half-Shoanti she is "Speaks For The Dead", for non-Shoanti she is "Yaziyah", or "Yazi" if she really likes you. She wants to preserve the tradition of the adulthood names, but doesn't want to appear too tribalistic and barbaric in more "civilized" company. Compromise is the name of the game for her. :)
Got it. Mouse is probably going to end up really confused, then - she favors her Shoanti human father, so that's likely how Yaziyah is going to expect to interact with her, but she's got absolutely zero experience with Shoanti culture (or elven culture, for that matter; all she really remembers in more than vague impressions is the Lambs and Korvosa). It could actually turn into some very interesting roleplay, since Yaziyah sees herself as kind of a Shoanti cultural ambassador and Mouse is pretty hungry to discover who she can be outside of Gaedren's influence. Could be cool!
Hey everyone. So excited to be a part of this AP! It looks like I'm the oldest so far in the group. I'm 39 and I work in a type1 diabetes research lab. I'm the molecular biologist in the lab but I also manage the lab. Currently I'm on sick leave because I had extensive foot surgery. I live in Canada, technically on the prairies but pretty close to the mountains as well. That puts me in Mtn time and will post usually in the evenings once I'm back at work.
I've been playing table-top RPGs since '98 (pretty much D&D but also played Gurps before switching to Pathfinder). Even though I've been playing for awhile, I've always played with great DMs who knew the rules so I've always relied on them more than myself to make sure I'm doing things correctly.
I already know half the group, but greetings and salutations all the same.
Jamros is a character type that I've never attempted so hopefully I built him properly. Also, if you couldn't tell from my background, he's a little on the crazy sociopath side. That being said, I'll try to rein him in as much as possible, mostly to avoid scenarios where no one feels comfortable enough to work with him.
As for myself, I'm afraid I've ninja’d Mouse in the age category, coming in at 24 years of age. I started Pathfinder (and tabletop gaming) about 3 years ago and started GMing a year later. My pbp experience only goes as far back as early December so I'm still pretty new to the medium and I am by no means a professional writer. Still, this whole experiences has done wonders for me already, almost like I'm stretching a muscle I have used since high school, so I'm ready to crack some skulls.
Jamros your avatar creeps me out (that's a good thing!), partly because it reminds me of me as a kid.
Edit: Also, everyone please consider your current living situation within the city. Calcedon has identified his estate on the city map in Roll20. You're all free to do the same (or just indicate to me where you are and I'll mark it up). A substantial part of the campaign occurs within the city so where you live is a significant thing.
If only my portrait could be my avatar *sigh*
Hello new and old faces alike! This seems like a great party to be a part of, and I mean to thank the GM for picking Garvid.
Garvid is made to take a beating and dish out another one. Skills wise, he's mostly acting as a secondary(tertiary) face or thief, and will most likely focus on Sense Motive or Physical skills, if need be. Personality-wise, he is quite gruff and sometimes too direct, but usually thinks before he acts, and profiles everyone he meets.
A bit about myself, I'm shamelessly stealing the youngest spot, as I've turned 22 a couple of weeks ago. I'm second-to-last year in a robotics based university course in Scotland, and all those things could mean my posts are in weird hours. I've only just started Pathfinder two years ago, and the PbP way of doing stuff is right up my alley.
Right then, crunch is done.
I imagine Jamros would have a room at the chelaxian embassy if there is one in Korvosa.
FYI I don't own a tablet so don't be surprised if I goof on a move with roll20.
Jamros, that sounds like it would be in Citadel Crest, or maybe north near City Hall, would you agree?
I've been setting things up on roll20, and I'll start reviewing crunch tonight. I'm shooting for the game to start Thursday (mon-wed are very busy days for me), though I might get something sooner.
And don't worry about mobile. If you can describe your actions, we'll figure it out (though I hope those of you using mobile devices can at least see the map). I have been able to do pretty well with my Moto Turbo.
I'm super excited to get going! Mouse's crunch should be done - I pondered looking for another trait to go with the Unlearned drawback, but didn't really find anything except for Quain Martial Artist, which has Tien connections that would clearly not work out for someone who hasn't left Korvosa in her memory. Plus, while it's very character-appropriate, I'm not sure Unlearned is quite detrimental enough to counter +1 damage to basically all my attacks. :)
I may keep poking around a bit for another trait, as I sort of want Unlearned for her, but we'll see.
I am posting a "teaser" in the gameplay thread this morning. Please don't respond there yet, as the first official gameplay post will come tomorrow. This is just to "set the stage," so to speak :)
Yay, more teasing!
You're such a tease ;)
You're such a tease ;)
I really am.
Everyone, please format your stat blacks so that they appear at the top of your profiles, and are not within spoilers. The goal is for me to be able to just load your page and pick out the info I need without having to scroll down or click spoiler buttons. As to format, I'm not picky as long as I can find what I need.
@Calcedon - please include your CMB/CMD in your stats.
@Mouse - Quain Martial Artist would be fine, if you'd like it. We can just replace "Quain" with "Korvosa" :). +1 to damage is great at levels 1-2, but the hp of the baddies will quickly scale past that. Unlearned as a drawback makes good sense for Mouse. As to an appropriate detriment, see below discussion of my "adjustments."
About difficulty. The original AP was written for 3.5 so it already needs conversion. In addition, I'm going to experiment with raising the difficulty level to account for the fact that we have six players, all intelligently built with a 25 point buy. My go-to tactics for this are (1) adding more or different baddies, and/or (2) using the simple "advanced" template (static buffs to pretty much everything). This template can result in some pretty high AC, so don't be surprised if your low-level enemies are surprisingly hard to hit. As we move along I'll ask for feedback as to the difficulty of the encounters and adjust from there. Thoughts?
I can send you a link to some curse conversions of you'd like, though a lot of it will need some beefing if/when we move out of part one.
Edit: the first two modules use beta rules so they may require more tweaking than usual.
http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2lesl?Steev42s-Conversions-to-Pathfinder
Updated Garvid's sheet, then I remembered about the 25PB. As a 2h full BAB character, I'm not terribly bothered about the high AC, to be fair! Feedback will be provided any time it might be asked for, with pleasure.
Thanks for the link! I ran Edge of Anarchy last year for a live group and found that d20pfsrd has a converted bestiary for every book, but I'll scope that out, too.
Thanks for the link! I ran Edge of Anarchy last year for a live group and found that d20pfsrd has a converted bestiary for every book, but I'll scope that out, too.
D20pfsrd's conversions are okay for a while, but they tend to skip npcs occasionally, so be warned.
Yeah, but NPCs usually aren't too hard to fix. If nothing else, just pull an appropriate generic NPC from Archives of Nethys and go. Heck, half the time I can just generate NPC skill checks or attacks in my head, especially for low level ones.
No I mean boss npcs
Lurking whilst I work on first post!
I hope you don't lose the post at all - I had the mean computer-wrecking goblins eat one of mine! D:
Yea I'm having all kinds of issues with this site and imgur as well, but I'm trying to be careful.
My usual tactic is to type it in a Google document (which autosaves as you go), then paste it into the forum. If the forum eats it, well, you've got it someplace else.
EDIT: I remembered a couple of last minute purchases I'd meant to make - a couple of books, priced as journals since they're nothing mechanically advantageous. Hope that's cool.
@Mouse - the books are a-okay.
@Yazi, let's assume you can find the address, though as you mentioned in roll20 chat you likely have no clue who or what is there.
Excellent posts so far! This looks to be a great group. If everyone manages to post this evening, I'll move us along tonight.
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I just realised I missed the Knowledge(Local) roll. I'll just do it here, if that's alright.
So I may have stayed up all night marathoning daredevil and I "may" have woken up five minutes ago.
Yeah.....that was not a wise decision. I'm gonna work on posts soon as I get a shower.
So I may have stayed up all night marathoning daredevil and I "may" have woken up five minutes ago.
Yeah.....that was not a wise decision. I'm gonna work on posts soon as I get a shower.
"May." ;)
I added a "Vernacular" spoiler to the campaign info tab, providing some common slang terms used around the city (e.g. Mouse's use of "horser"). Note that some of them are outright racist and might provoke a response if heard by the "wrong" people.
Edit: I"m also enjoying the external links to audio/video. It really adds to the mood of the posts.
Sweet, a collected list of slang will be nice. Mouse's language has been influenced by her situation, which has been decidedly rough and lower-class, so she's probably going to be using your list heavily. :) By the way, I mean no offense by using the term, Yazi - she's using it in her internal dialogue almost innocently, as the only word she really knows for the Shoanti, despite being half-Shoanti herself.
Language-wise, I am using the Xhosa language as a stand-in for Shoanti. I like using real-world languages when a non-Common language is spoken by my characters, but if anyone has another preference let me know.
The non-Common languages that Yazi speaks and what I plan to use for them:
- Shoanti = Xhosa
- Dwarven = Danish
- Varisian = Romani (NOT the same as Romanian, they are completely different) - a bit tricky since Romani is not in Google translate, but I know a few words of it.
I do the same thing - Hmong makes a nice Gnomish and Sinhala is good for Sylvan. Finnish for Kellid, Arabic for Androffan...:)
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By the way, speaking of outside source material, here's a character portrait of Mouse - not my work, but I thought it worked well. And a full-body portrait as well - some of the particulars of her pack are different, but the flavor is there. :)
Lovely art. I can make this your roll20 token graphic if you like.
Nah, my forum avatar is fine - it keeps things less confusing. I just like good character art and enjoy sharing it. I've got five Pinterest boards of character art, each 200+ pictures...but I keep them private to avoid spamming everyone else's feed when I go on binges and pin 50+ at a go. ;)
The post predator strikes again! Good thing I was only half-way through...
Nice pictures, Mouse!
@Yazi, I really like the voice of Shohreh as well, I was just enjoying The Expanse the other day. Excellent choice!
@Mouse: lovely pictures!
@Garvin: thank you! The TV series is quite nice, but I like the novels better. Except the fourth, which is quite meh. But I want to be Bobbie when I grow up. Bobbie is the best.
If you were referring to Yazi as "the smallest Shoanti", she is actually quite tall. I should put the actual numbers on her profile.
Oh. I did read the description, but the actual meaning was not a mountain of muscles, as the stereotypical Shoanti Barbarian.
I did hear that there was books, but I forgot, and that will probably push me over to actually getting around reading them.
Give me a couple hours, just finished a double shift.
There's no rush!
Just to let everyone know, I'm heading out on a whirlwind big city adventure with the husband in the morning - my posting will be spotty through Wednesday night.
Awesome, have fun!
Very pleased with the writing! I'm enjoying how each of you are bringing out your character's personality, including the use of external media and dialects.
I will wait to update until very late tonight. As a head's up, Mon-Wed are my busiest days, so I may not be available to give a "big" update each night. I will be checking in often, though.
Also, if you have any questions/suggestions, feel free to ask here, in roll20 chat, or just shoot me a PM.
edit: Garvid your post came in as I was writing mine. I'll include a response to you with the update tonight!
I have an exam tomorrow so I won't get around to posting until tomorrow evening. It will be a "big" post that will propel us forward, so the momentum shouldn't be disrupted too much.