No worries. I just started playing one in PFS not too long ago, so this kind of stuff is fresh in my mind. I learned alot about wizarding. Some things I learned: Change up spell list depending on party since you have the most versatility and keep a few slots open to deal with unique issues.(dont worry about that until higher levels when you have slots to spare)
Well, the generalist was great fun to play. I specialized in subtle spells: some enchantments and obscure things here and there, but I guess he did use battle field control spells often. obscuring mist was a favorite.
My diviner was also fun to play. With improved initiative and reactionary trait.. she acted before she acted. :P
Obscuring Mist is an excellent spell. Anything that takes options away from our opponents is good.
Just so people understand my idiosyncratic posting: I am based in Eastern Australia (GMT+11, I think), which means that I will generally be posting evening/early morning US time.
I have changed my opposition schools to Evocation and Enchantment. Already starting to feel a little different.
My spellbook is listed at the bottom of my profile.
Among other things, this means I can no longer cast light spells or magic missiles. I may learn dancing lantern if we need light in the future. It also means I can cast detect magic as a regular spell instead of an opposed school spell.
I've also had to change out my spell selection, as a result, so I think it will be a little better than what I had before.
Level 2:
+1 level of Oracle
+6 hp
+1 BAB
+1 Will
Skills: +1 Heal, +1 Knowledge(Religion), +1 Perception, +1 Ride, +1 Sense Motive
+1 1st level spell slot
Spells Known: Mending, Endure Elements, Enlarge Person (Mystery spell)
Seriously, all of our crits are taken directly from Halfdan's non-combat rolls.
Well, I am willing to promise to try and crit less ;-)
I'm afraid I'm going to have to drop out of the game. I can't keep up with posting every four to eight hours (like most of you do), not with two jobs and my other gaming schedule. :P And rather than lag behind like I've been doing, I figure I would step out and let someone else play who can post that often.
Sorry to see you go.
Will post to the recruitment thread again to re-open it for an arcane caster.
Okay... I'll keep playing until you find a replacement, it just might be at sporadic times, due to schedule conflicts. :P
Sorry to see you go.
Feel free to check the recruitment thread and let me know if you have any comments.
I don't see too much difference between the universalist wizards, so I'm going to suggest Woodford's "Pontia" simply because he has made over 1,500 posts under various aliases so seems more likely to be a reliable poster.
I'm sure Lucrezia is secure enough to handle another woman in the party. :)
Yea, I was wondering how that was going to play out. Aww, no cat fights? :) I don't care either way. They all look okay to me.
I've always been the type to blame the man more than the other woman. :)
Well then I will just have to be on my best behavior then. :)
As the newest member of this little band, I feel that my opinion probably should count the least, but I while still add my own 5 cents worth ;-)
What we are losing:
Bealzius - Conjuror 2
Skills covered:
Appraise,
Knowledge (arcana),
Knowledge (local),
Knowledge (nobility),
Knowledge (history),
Knowledge (planes),
Spellcraft
Lanse (Caitlyn) - Elementalist(Air) 2
Skills covered:
Craft(Alchemy)
Fly +7
Knowledge(Arcana)
Knowledge(Nobility)
Knowledge(Planes)
Knowledge(History)
Knowledge(Engineering)
Spellcraft
Specialty:
Evocation - lots of blasting.
John (Pontia) - Universalist 2
Skills covered:
Spellcraft
Knowledge (Arcana)
Knowledge (Religion)
Knowledge (Planes)
Knowledge (Dungeoneering)
Knowledge (Local)
Knowledge (History)
Sleight of Hand
Profession (Courtesan)
Keddah (Andreev) - Universalist 2
Skills covered:
Appraise +11
Craft (Alchemy) +8
Craft (Weapons) +8
Knowledge (Arcana)
Knowledge (Engineering)
Knowledge (Geography)
Knowledge (History)
Knowledge (Local)
Knowledge (Planes)
Linguistics +8
Perception +7
Sense Motive +5
Spellcraft +11
---------------------------------------
To be honest, I think we already have plenty of damage-dealing capacity, so a support/utility caster would be more useful.
As such, I would lean towards one of the Universalist wizards.
Obviously, I'd prefer a support/control caster of a useful specialist school given how bad the universalist school is these days, but either of those would be better than a blaster (of any type). I don't think either's skills compliment the group especially well, but neither are they terrible.
My biggest concern is that Bealzius is a good example of a Cheliax wizard. He's a conjuror, from the academy, and a worshiper of Asmodeus. None of the new wizards would actually replace that well. With that said, I do like the ex-prostitute turned Chelaxian hero angle for Pontia as I think that would actually play out well for propaganda purposes. But it does make the group feel even less like Chelaxian heroes.
I agree that we don't need more damage. Universalist wizards are ok, just not terribly exciting. Bealzius was a good Cheliaxian wizard, and none of the applicants replace that well like Marc said. I like Caitlyn's personality alot. Though Pontia does have a slightly better background story. Either of those 2 would be fine with me.
At this point my vote would go to Edward Bellones. As I've mentioned before I question the choice of a familiar over an arcane bond unless necessary for some other reason, but it's a pretty minor issue. And he's his answer to having abjuration as an opposition school demonstrates that he at least thought about the issue and how to handle it. Which is great.
Obviously I'd prefer a LE character if we had a choice, but I'm going to give a lot of credit to the player who obviously read the recruitment post and wrote their background accordingly.
What do you think of Geminus? He kinda stands out being an Int sorceror and all as opposed to being a wizard and he does post frequently so he can keep up. I noticed you didn't reply to him, Marc.
I don't have too much to say about an Int-based dual-blooded sorcerer other than, why? First of all, sorcerers are a pretty terrible class. For me, someone would have to do a lot to convince me that a character *must* be a sorcerer. He even gets less spells known than a regular sorcerer, which is already the worst downside to having chosen one. Now, I'm not the biggest optimizer in the world, but I'd prefer that the party not have to carry a crappy caster because they wanted a bunch of cool but only marginally useful powers.
But then he wants to have a 16 strength. That's 10 points out of 25 spent on a *completely* useless stat for a caster. If he wanted a 12 or 13, that'd be fine. But that's a lot of points to spend on something that's only going to encourage you to get into melee and waste party resources (mostly on healing you afterward). And he's planning on using his spells known on things like Identify and True Strike. I'm pretty sure I don't need to explain to anyone why those two spells are awful choices for a caster. (If he were a ray sorcerer and decided to take a 16 Dex and have true strike, I'd have reservations, but he'd at least be competent at his role.)
Also, if a player believes that a character, by necessity, must be stupid in order to believe in the Chelish government, then this game isn't for them. Then again, a low Wisdom caster would be fine (Bealzius is low Wisdom). It's just, I believe, not the reason he believes in Cheliax's right to rule.
I've played with Feral in a couple other PBPs including Cult of the Ebon Destroyers (a module that was panned as being overwhelmingly too difficult) and his characters may be pretty unoptimized but they are never ineffective or need to be carried. His sorcerer is unique and although his spells known suffers right now, based on his progression, he is going to start taking the human alternate favored class to get free spells at level 4 and on. His number of known spells shouldn't be a problem after a couple levels. Identify isn't a super great spell anymore but he gets it for free from his bloodline. True Strike is just a great all-purpose spell especially with the whip since it's a guaranteed trip or disarm, from 15 feet away, when we need it.
In exchange for being a sorcerer over a wizard he gets, flexibility in his spell casting since he doesn't have to prepare spells and a fully leveled animal companion (which has a mighty 24 hp at level 2). This may not be an equal trade but it's quite a bit better than 'marginally useful'.
The 16 strength may be excessive for a caster but he still has the 18 in his casting stat and a healthy 14 con. He's quite a bit more experienced than our last wizard so I don't think him running into melee needlessly is going to be an issue and if he does get stuck in melee he has a whip and a longspear so at least he can fight from the back rank. Like I said, Feral's a good player and I don't think he's going to be wasting party resources.
As for the naive comment I don't think it's a matter of his character being straight up stupid. It sounds like his gimmick is more that he doesn't necessarily follow the belief that Cheliax is a nation run by fiends out to oppress the people. His character believes in the status quo.
I think if we give Feral/Geminus a chance you'll see that he's one of the strongest applicants both as a character and a player.
Well, I don't agree with your assessment of the mechanics of the character, and I feel like his background doesn't jump out at me saying "pick me". With that said, if you've played with him and like him, he does have being a good player going for him. I'd say that weighs in his favor.
Also, I should note that I like Sir Percival's new background. I especially like that he's politically motivated and LE. Again, I don't know what people's obsession with familiar's over arcane bonds is. (Do other GMs regularly sunder/steal arcane bonded items? Because that'd make it all make sense). One of his opposition schools in necromancy, which could be a slight problem when dealing with undead, but both of these are pretty minor mechanical problems. (Opposition schools are always a pain to pick).
Fair enough, I just felt like we should at least consider him. Well familiars help with action economy and the various benefits they give are pretty good. Especially the little dinosaurs, they give +4 to init which is especially good on a wizard. The only thing he'd really be missing from banning necromancy is false life, everything else he can replicate with similar spells. I know the pain of banning the wrong schools. Sir Percival's background is alright, but mechanically he's a little boring. My vote is Feral/Geminus.
I am personally leaning towards the new Percival, for both mechanical and story reasons. I'm really not a fan of the sorceror at this point given that we have so many wizard applications and given the drawbacks of the class (and the further drawbacks of the archetype). An extremely, extremely limited spell selection makes it difficult to be the replacement for the sole arcane spellcaster, especially when that caster needs to fill a support/utility role.
Given the new suite of applicants, however, I'm still going to take more feedback from the group. I think the diviner would be fine as well, but I do like the fact that Percival is LE and the child of a noble which I think lends itself to the RP role that we'll be losing.
Looks like Feral has tossed a new character in for consideration. A LE noble born wizard of his own.
Percival is fine, but I do like the look of Feral's new character, Zephyr Jeggare, too - a LE Chelish devil-binder, from a Noble house to boot, seems promising.
I'm also intrigued by the new submission. On a side note, I'm traveling for the next three days so while I'll certainly not miss the daily posting, times and frequency may be stranger than usual.
Welcome to the group. :)
Welcome aboard :-)
Hopefully, we can avoid too many cat fights between Lucrezia and Zephyr ;-)
It will all be good. Zephyr will just have to leave Lucrezia's man alone. Though Lucius might get smacked if he has wandering eyes....
Welcome aboard. I promise to be good, i swear. No need to smack me out of anger.
Zephyr, I think we'll have you entering town as the group is moving out to explore the outlying homes. Your family has applied political pressure to get you into the expedition, despite the fact that it has already launched. You are provided with the same mount (combat trained light horse) with barding and tabard as the rest of the group. You are given commission papers to show that you should be with the group and told to meet up with them as quickly as possible.
Understood.
Someone let me know when the party is preparing to head out.
Go ahead and post an introduction any time. I'm going to pause the actual investigation of the home until the meet-up is taken care of.
Just FYI I'll be out of town for the weekend starting this evening. Feel free to DMPC me if you have to.
I think its just an RP thing.
I think I missed something. Are we playing it that light on armor is somehow less effective or debilitating in some way or is Marc's fussing just an RP thing?
I mean light from your body (rather than in front of you like a torch) makes it more difficult to see, especially when you are holding a shield. I'd probably give a circumstance penalty to sight-based perception rolls in that kind of situation.
Alrighty noted: Marc has an aversion to magically lighted breastplates.
Light shines with the brightness of a torch. It's not the brightness of the item that's a problem. It's the lack of control over the light source. If it's your body, then you need to move yourself any time you want to see something. Additionally, Marc carries a heavy shield. If held out in front of him, as it would be traveling into danger, this blocks the light source to the direct places he's looking causing the light to be dimmer where he directs his attention to. It makes it even harder for him to see but easier for everything in front of him to see him as they *don't* have a light in their face. So now, instead of being blind, he's near-blind *and* distracted.
Zephyr obviously has Scribe Scroll now and I was considering taking Craft Wondrous to support the party further at 3rd. Is there anything special about the situation during the watches the party has been keeping or how you run your games that I should be aware of that would make crafting at night challenging or impossible?
As long as you still get 8 hours of sleep each night there isn't any issue with crafting at night. If you do it while you are actually on watch it will obviously prevent you from walking around and patrolling, but other than that I don't see any regular problem with it.
I don't think anyone's going to be too worried about a wizard not walking around on their watch (given it's going to be third watch anyway). Being awake when we're attacked should be good enough. We're going to have to pair you up with someone with a good perception skill anyway. Also, your familiar could walk around (and probably has a better perception).
As it is, an hour of your watch is already spent preparing spells. What's another 3 hours spent crafting? (Beside, of course, more useful than standing around.)