Nice! I still have to finish up backstory (and Korvosa extras). Will see if I can get it done tonight.
Nice! I still have to finish up backstory (and Korvosa extras). Will see if I can get it done tonight.
No worries if you can't. Whurly and Vrash still need get their characters ready.
Psh! Raina is getting impatient to kick some Lamm-butt. ;)
(Not serious. Take your time everyone.)
I kind of like that we are arcane magic "light". It seems like we'll have a very sneaky kind of party on the whole, too, minus possibly Tusilak, although his darkness abilities will probably help with keeping us unseen! I like, I like.
I have another exam next Tuesday, so I'm studying my ass off. I'm working on the background little by little when I can fit in some creative time, but that's the reason I haven't finished it yet!
School comes first. I can wait.
Yeah, his darkness abilities could be nasty, nasty with sneakiness. Should be fun. Will make sure to grab silence when its time for that too.
Okay, I'm going to check with Vrash to see if he's still interested. In the mean time, can everyone just ping me so I know who's ready and who's not.
(Sorry I'm paranoid about these things.)
More than ready! :)
Ready, just hammering out the final touches on the backstory/fluff. I've got a little time tonight, so I'm hoping to finish it up now.
Alright, I believe the character is complete now!
Most people who know him just call him "Sev", and only Raina knows that it's short for Seven. I may tweak a few things about him here and there before we play, but he's essentially done.
Aw man :( Now I feel bad that I've gotta be mean to you (to begin with!)
I just wanna give him a hug.
Is Seven just a vanilla rogue or does he have an archetype?
Made a couple background tweaks since posting that (nothing too major).
@Raina He's a vanilla rogue right now, but I may look through some of the archetypes again to see if they fit the final concept.
I think it'll be fun to see how our characters interact! :)
Wow, that's not a happy story. Plenty of juicy hooks though.>:)
Sev you can read Raina's spoiler here. I'm going to be working on the lists of Known NPC's before we get started.
So we have:
Haraku - Bard
Tusilak - Cleric
Raina - Fighter
Sev - Rogue
Whurly - Ranger
Let's see how the first part goes, and I may introduce an NPC to help you guys on the arcane front if it looks like you may need some help in that department. If you guys say no, that's fine.
Sounds like a plan! And I think Vrash is going to play a ranger, correct?
I'm just super excited to have a +27 bonus to my disguise check when using change shape.... :)
I talked to Vrash and he is opting out. I'm still waiting on Whurly to finish up with his character then we can get started.
+27 holy schmoly!
It's just too bad that Hakaru's future companions are about as subtle as a brick to the face. xD
P.S. - I actually considered playing a wizard quite a bit in the beginning of this. I had an idea for an Acadamae student that was pretty promising. It's kinda rare to be without a primary arcane caster in a group!
And it looks legit. Not even going to try rolling against that.
"Disguise? I don't know what you're talking about, sir."
However, it does say as alter self and it looks like a spell like ability, so it can be dispelled. >:)
I believe this only applies to appearing human, even with the feat. The scope of the original ability is that you have a specific human form. This would allow you to have a more broad human form, but still limited to humans as per the base ability. This is also more consistent with folklore. That's how I believe it to be RAI. Your final adjustment, even with this, is +25, because there is a -2 penalty for impersonating a creature of another race. Since humans are by far the most plentiful race in this setting, I think it's more than fair to limit the ability to that. I don't think it was ever intended to allow a person to have the ability to handwave all but the most extreme disguise checks from level 1. :P Think about it: Why would a Kitsune who has the ability to turn into one specific human individual suddenly be able to turn into any individual of any humanoid race? That doesn't make sense!
To give you an example of the difficulty in disguising yourself as something that you're not:
If you tried to disguise yourself as an elderly female gnome, you would be at a -36 penalty. If the person you were trying to fool with the disguise was her lover? The DC for your -36 check is their perception check +10. :P You also have to make that check once per hour! This is the most extreme case that is even possible in the rules for disguise. If you can mitigate the majority of a -36 penalty at level 1 without expending any resources, something is not right. :P
Upon some further research, The PFSRD has this to say in the feat's description:
Editor's Note: The text of this feat states that you can mimic an "individual" which you have encountered, but it likely should specify that Kitsune have the ability to turn into humans, so GMs are encouraged to read the feat as follows: "You can precisely mimic the physical features of any human you have encountered..."
Now, we all know that the PFSRD isn't an official site, but I think it's a pretty respected source. The feat probably should have been worded this way.
Lastly, from a pure feat balance perspective, there are no other feats that give a flat +10 all-encompassing bonus to a skill to my knowledge, with the added bonus of giving someone an at-will spell on top of that.
This feat essentially would allow him to alter self at will.
Druids can't do this until level 13, and they're a shapeshifting class.
Yes, there are significant penalties to do different things which is why I think the +27 looks insane at first but in reality is not that ridiculous.
1. It can be dispelled
2. It doesn't really scale (it's pretty awesome for what it is, but it gets easier and easier for others to figure out what is going on even if I max disguise)
3. To get that bonus it involves an investment of racial abilities and feats/skills.
4. Ultimately, I'm cool with DM Salsa setting the limits. As written the ability specifically says I don't get any attribute bonuses (I could get darkvision or swim speed and I did work the latter into my history). My goal is to use this to become the ultimate "spy" I guess. Of course, I'd like to be able to assume all humanoid forms! If you look at the disguise rules, I think they are pretty fair - for example trying to imitate a specific person gives you a -10 penalty (which is offset by the feat), a different size cateogry gives -10. So, pretty hefty penalties. I think the racial ability and feat were meant to allow you to assume the shape/likeness of dwarves, gnomes, halfling, elves, etc but just not make it impossible to do so anymore.
Anyway, I went that route very much for the role-playing aspect of things. In a way I imagined Mystique who uses guile and trickery to accomplish some pretty amazing things (much more so than combat skill for example).
Realistic Likeness:
When you are in human form, you can take the shape of a specific individual.
Prerequisite: Kitsune.
Benefit: You can precisely mimic the physical features of any individual you have encountered. When you use your racial change shape ability, you can attempt to take the form of an individual, granting you a +10 circumstance bonus on Disguise checks made to fool others with your impersonation.
There's the answer, it was in the feat's description all along.
"When you are in human form, you can take the shape of a specific individual."
I was wondering why I couldn't find many people asking about this seemingly confusing feat, but it just turns out that everyone reads better than we do. It's extremely straightforward. xD
So, yes, you get a +27 to mimic any individual human. You can mimic other races with the disguise skill as normal, but you would be at your base +7 on those checks.
Well then, I guess the obvious solution is to only associate with humans! :). Thanks for clarifying that before we got started.
I have to say - I'm impressed with your rules knowledge and tactical skills.
Good thing there are a lot of humans in Korvosa!
Look at any cross-section of the city's population and you will find that for every 10 inhabitants you see, 9 are human.
Sleep well.
Okay, I'm planning on getting this going Wednesday. Please have you characters ready before then.
Sounds good, Wednesday it is!
I will be ready!
Looking forward to it!
Game should start in about 8 hours or less. (10:30 PM CST aka what time it'll be for me.) I haven't forgotten you guys, just been a bit busy.
I'm EST, so I should be up. I'll check in around late o'clock tonight and see what's going down. :)
I just got home about 45 minutes ago. I had to work late, so rather than rush out a barely coherent post, I'm going to start tomorrow. Sorry about the delay, but the penguins didn't leave me much sanity. :P
No problem DM Salsa. We'll see ya tomorrow. I'm touring a client's hotel property all day tomorrow, but will be on in the evening. Also a heads-up that I will be at SXSW Friday through Tuesday. I expect to be able to post, but could be a rough spot or two.
Thanks, I just took a look, and Whurly still has his old background up, so he has another day.
SXSW is something I have always wante to go to. I hear it gets bigger and better every year - have fun!
Okay, Working on the first post now.
Woah, the gameplay tab doesn't say there's a new post there, but it's there! I'm going to post in a little bit. :D
I think until you have posted there yourself, it won't give you the dot. Should be cleared up as soon as you post.
My post is entirely narrative, so I've made no checks for any of the actions in it. In the future, I obviously will! I thought setting a scene for his entry into the campaign would be more entertaining than rolling like 80 checks. Let me know if there are any issues with it. :)
@Everyone - It's up to you whether or not you see Sev on the rooftop. He has a distinctive silhouette that Raina is pretty familiar with, so it's not really outlandish to say that she'd recognize him if she happened to be scanning the roof while waiting. He has no significant cover and it's not completely dark yet. Do what you will!
You're fine, but can you give me a stealth check?
Okay, my first roll of the campaign is a 1. Glad I got that out of my system early!
Ouch... I hope this doesn't mean I got the 20s out of my system early!
Awesome posts all around - this is going to be fun.
My character (being somewhat rogueish) would be looking around so I would probably be making an active perception check when arriving to the address:
I'll be making a post later tonight. Is anyone going in?
Sev won't go in until he sees someone else go first, regardless of being caught skulking around atop the roof. How it goes down really depends on what everyone else does.
Tusilak is going in. I'll go ahead and make a post accordingly.
Alright, I'll be moving things along a little later then.
Are we arriving before or after Tusilak? I guess whatever you decide, DM-Salsa, I'm good with (just seems that based on all our posts we are not arriving at the same time).
Order of Arrival:
Tusilak
Aerodus/Haraku and Raina
Sev
Alice Margatroid
