I am Andy, and I intend to murder lead you all on a rather unusual but hopefully spooky fun journey.
Here is what I'm looking for in prospective players:
Expectations::
1. Patience! I am new to PbP, and I am largely using my phone for operation. Please forgive any formatting or spelling errors, and be gentle when I ask for help with something.
2. Commitment. I would like to see everyone post at least once a day, excepting for holidays, vacations, etc. I Wil ask for PDFs or hero lab portfolio copies of your character for situations of emergencies, vacations, etc. so that the game can continue without everyone feeling any undue stress or worry about leaving us hanging.
3. Follow established protocol. I will assume that all players will be taking 10 on perception at all times, including at doors; as a GM I do not find it reasonable for rogues or anyone to get take 20s at a door, as that would imply you spend a significant time staring at it. Disablers will have to roll on traps because they can misfire, so unless you have an ability that lets you take 10 or 20 on a disable, I will roll it for you as part of your discovery of the trap. In combat please put your basic combat info in each post; |hp current (including temporary hp)/hp max, current AC/conditional modifiers|, |f/r/w saves +/- conditional modifiers,| |CMB (conditional modifiers) / CMD (conditional modifiers).| |Temporary effect names.| Also we will need to establish an exploring protocol. Who leads and where does everyone stand in relationship to each other when adventuring. I expect people to typically line up two or three in a line, with a typical set up at doors: X always positions to the left of Y, and Z to Y's right at a closed, untrapped door.
4. Offer suggestions! I'm new at this, and while I've been GMing for a while IRL, this is a clunky new medium for me and I am very open to suggestions.
Character Creation:
I'm looking for 4-5 level 1 players, core races primarily, but I am willing to negotiate. All paizo material is acceptable. Crafting will be a little tricky but not impossible in this mod. To craft effectively you will most likely need access to the rope trick/ring of sustenance trick to get your full 8 hours in every day. I will discuss this further with any players who might rely on crafting as a regular part of their character, like gunslingers, alchemists, poisoners.
Access to towns with significant magical stores for sell is NOT common in this adventure path. I do not want 100% completely optimized itemization characters but please feel free to message me with ideas of what kind of loot you would like to see. If your build hinges around one paricular wondrous item or weaapon mod, I strongly suggest you rethink it. I mean how lucky would you have to be to find exactly that thing just lying around? That said, I will find ways to work in upgraded items and the like.
I would like to see some non-traditional characters join up, and I admit that I will lean towards accepting occult classes, investigators, or oracles over more traditional or high damage classes. In both of my current IRL campaigns I have to deal with massive damage one shotter PCs, so I will tell you now, those character concepts are going to be a hard sell for me.
20 point buy, 2 traits and a Strange Aeons campaign trait (hopefully not everyone goes Twitchy on me; try to resist! It is a very good trait though.) Drawback and additional traits acceptable. I'm gonna give adopted the side eye, but allow it.
Don't stress too much on your character background--you can't remember it anyway!
I can't think of anything else off the top of my head. I will bump the post for a few days until I have a nice selection of characters to chose from.
M Human Destined Urban Bloodrager 16 | HP 102/148 (118/164) | AC 54 (T31, FF54, CMD60) | F+26/R+28/W+30 (+2 vs fear, +5 vs mind-affecting) | Mv 40' | Init +9 | Per +24| Rage 30/36 | Spells 4/2/1/0 (6/4/3/2) | Active: Heroism, Barkskin, See Invis, Shield, FoM, Long Arm, Dance, Vigor, Tactical, BoF, Legendary
Two questions:
1) Expected optimization level? Dervak isn't a particularly optimized bloodrager, and in fact rage is a last resort for him. My hope is to have a feeling of real danger and desperation in the fights. Making a character as strong as possible works against that.
2) Starting gold?
Suggestions: Instead of desired basic combat info included in each post, this info is usually placed in a character's alias header (such as Dervak, who posted above.) This way it's always handy, though it does mean you only see their current status rather than maintaining a running log round by round.
In a similar vein, most folks have their entire character sheet under their character's alias profile, making it easily available on this site by just clicking on their name; they don't have to be logged in or anything for people to be able to see it. It's not really downloadable though, so if you want a hard back up copy you'd still need them to provide one.
I'd say this isn't the most treasureful AP out there. It is big on weirder, more esoteric gear that isn't generally cornerstones of builds. So I would say, as far as item optimization is concerned, the more flexible your character can be, the better. Actually since I am thinking about it, there is an opportunity relatively early in the AP to retrieve one item of low-moderate (4-5k max gold worth) that would be your character's personal valuable from his or her past. So you can keep that in mind, that if you need one particular item in that wealth range, there will be an opportunity to find one specifically made for you - IF you can find it >=)
Starting wealth is whatever your average for your class would be.
Thank you for the tip about the alias and profile! That does make it easier. I'm going to start browsing active games for ideas on formatting over the next couple of days.
M Human Destined Urban Bloodrager 16 | HP 102/148 (118/164) | AC 54 (T31, FF54, CMD60) | F+26/R+28/W+30 (+2 vs fear, +5 vs mind-affecting) | Mv 40' | Init +9 | Per +24| Rage 30/36 | Spells 4/2/1/0 (6/4/3/2) | Active: Heroism, Barkskin, See Invis, Shield, FoM, Long Arm, Dance, Vigor, Tactical, BoF, Legendary
My question was more about build optimization rather than gear.
If a higher power level is desired, Dervak could be yet another half-orc with Sacred Tattoos and Fate's Favored, a Primalist Destined Bloodrager, and dump Int for more Str. But based on my PFS experience I don't think Paizo normally writes adventures expecting that to be the norm.
In order for this game to be challenging enough that it feels like a horror story (rather than fantasy superheroes just curbstomping everything in their way), is something like Dervak suitable or should I do more min-maxing?
Oh! Honestly I prefer less min maxing! Damage is important but isn't everything, I want characters to feel like they can sacrifice some damage in order to experiment with Stranger, more interesting ideas.
I should warn you though, this campaign - particularly the first book - has a fairly high mortality rate. I have already planned to compensate a little bit for this.
Forget about my question about background skills, will assume no, and be surprised if answer is yes.
I can answer questions about my occultist character here if you like. Things that won't necessarily come up because of the amnesia angle, but would have an effect on his character.
No on background skills. I thought i put it in the updated campaign info up there but i accidently called them "background traits." Will fix asap. I don't have any questions for you at this time!
No on background skills. I thought i put it in the updated campaign info up there but i accidently called them "background traits." Will fix asap. I don't have any questions for you at this time!
Male Half-Elf Swashbuckler (Inspired Blade) 1/Investigator (Empiricist) 2 | HP 24/24 | AC 18 (Touch 13, FF 15) | CMD 15 | Fort +1 Reflex +8 Will +3 | Init +3 | Low Light Vision, Perception +15
Super excited to be here! This is a super interesting group, I think. Three occult classes, two hybrid ones. Plus, only one person has darkvision, and I have low-light vision. Guess the scout roles are already pretty set, haha. This is gonna be really cool, I think.
Question, do I have my eyeball familiar right now. It's kind of a part of my body.
Yes, since it is part of your body. As s familiar though, you feel your connection to it as muted, fuzzy. Like it is very far from you, eveh though it is right there in your eye socket.
Super excited to be here! This is a super interesting group, I think. Three occult classes, two hybrid ones. Plus, only one person has darkvision, and I have low-light vision. Guess the scout roles are already pretty set, haha. This is gonna be really cool, I think.
I'm also excited! I love the occult classes, and I also like investigators and bloodragers for their flavor! Also I'm looking forward to all the low will saves >=)
Male Half-Elf Swashbuckler (Inspired Blade) 1/Investigator (Empiricist) 2 | HP 24/24 | AC 18 (Touch 13, FF 15) | CMD 15 | Fort +1 Reflex +8 Will +3 | Init +3 | Low Light Vision, Perception +15
Funnily enough, I believe you actually can apply archetypes to an Eyebiter's eye. There's a build for a Small character out there where you give it the Mauler archetype, so it can pop out of your eye socket, make it grow to be bigger than you, and then you ride it using your own severed optic nerve as the reins. It's so dumb, but also an amazing image.
Hm... you know that could actually be pretty cool as well as kinda creepy, my eye just oozing out of my socket slowly inflating till it's the same size as I am. I need to look a bit more at familiar archetypes really quick.
Funnily enough, I believe you actually can apply archetypes to an Eyebiter's eye. There's a build for a Small character out there where you give it the Mauler archetype, so it can pop out of your eye socket, make it grow to be bigger than you, and then you ride it using your own severed optic nerve as the reins. It's so dumb, but also an amazing image.
Good lord that is bonkers. I'm imagining a Halfling in a cowboy hat riding his own bulked out flying eyeball like that scene in Dr. Strangelove.
Occultist Spells Known 1st (4/day)—gravity bow, psychic reading, burning hands; 0 (at will)—detect magic, mage hand, telekinetic projectile ; Init +4; Perception +6; Mental Focus 7/7; (Evocation 4, Transmutation 3) AC 18, T 14, FF 14; hp 18/18; Fort +3, Ref +5, Will +4
TheAndyman wrote:
Julius Anderson wrote:
Funnily enough, I believe you actually can apply archetypes to an Eyebiter's eye. There's a build for a Small character out there where you give it the Mauler archetype, so it can pop out of your eye socket, make it grow to be bigger than you, and then you ride it using your own severed optic nerve as the reins. It's so dumb, but also an amazing image.
Good lord that is bonkers. I'm imagining a Halfling in a cowboy hat riding his own bulked out flying eyeball like that scene in Dr. Strangelove.
That's gotta do at least 1d6 Sanity loss. :P
Speaking of, will we be using Horror Handbook's sanity system here?
Hm... you know that could actually be pretty cool as well as kinda creepy, my eye just oozing out of my socket slowly inflating till it's the same size as I am. I need to look a bit more at familiar archetypes really quick.
I'm a big fan of the familiar archetypes myself, particularly Pilferer, Mascot and Valet.
Funnily enough, I believe you actually can apply archetypes to an Eyebiter's eye. There's a build for a Small character out there where you give it the Mauler archetype, so it can pop out of your eye socket, make it grow to be bigger than you, and then you ride it using your own severed optic nerve as the reins. It's so dumb, but also an amazing image.
Good lord that is bonkers. I'm imagining a Halfling in a cowboy hat riding his own bulked out flying eyeball like that scene in Dr. Strangelove.
That's gotta do at least 1d6 Sanity loss. :P
Speaking of, will we be using Horror Handbook's sanity system here?
No. I generally I find Paizo's optional systems needlessly complex, with a few exceptions. I will also admit I have not fully researched the Horror one, but I think this campaign is just fine and plenty eerie enough, particularly when we get to slow down and really write out what's happening
Male Half-Elf Swashbuckler (Inspired Blade) 1/Investigator (Empiricist) 2 | HP 24/24 | AC 18 (Touch 13, FF 15) | CMD 15 | Fort +1 Reflex +8 Will +3 | Init +3 | Low Light Vision, Perception +15
The familiar archetypes are great, I'm using a Sage archetype on my Monkey Goblin alchemist's tumor familiar in another campaign. If I don't know something, his tumor probably does. It just stinks that the tumor currently can't communicate, but you know...can't have everything in life.
Also, thank god we're not using the Sanity system. I loved Horror Adventures, but the sanity system and part of the corruption system (AKA where you fail 3 saves, and your character becomes super ultra mega dead and can't be resurrected) were just really weird.
The familiar archetypes are great, I'm using a Sage archetype on my Monkey Goblin alchemist's tumor familiar in another campaign. If I don't know something, his tumor probably does. It just stinks that the tumor currently can't communicate, but you know...can't have everything in life.
Also, thank god we're not using the Sanity system. I loved Horror Adventures, but the sanity system and part of the corruption system (AKA where you fail 3 saves, and your character becomes super ultra mega dead and can't be resurrected) were just really weird.
My friend's tumor familiar is a sage, and is turtle shaped. We call him Tom The Tumorous Turtle and when he speaks he sounds like the Turtle god island thing from the Last Airbender. He's fun. Also knows all the things.
Occultist Spells Known 1st (4/day)—gravity bow, psychic reading, burning hands; 0 (at will)—detect magic, mage hand, telekinetic projectile ; Init +4; Perception +6; Mental Focus 7/7; (Evocation 4, Transmutation 3) AC 18, T 14, FF 14; hp 18/18; Fort +3, Ref +5, Will +4
Had a mauler familiar for an undine shaman. A little cayman he named 'Chompy'. Then it turned from cute little croc to big not cute croc. Not optimal, sure, but lots of fun.
Male Half-Elf Swashbuckler (Inspired Blade) 1/Investigator (Empiricist) 2 | HP 24/24 | AC 18 (Touch 13, FF 15) | CMD 15 | Fort +1 Reflex +8 Will +3 | Init +3 | Low Light Vision, Perception +15
Oscar Whitehall wrote:
Had a mauler familiar for an undine shaman. A little cayman he named 'Chompy'. Then it turned from cute little croc to big not cute croc. Not optimal, sure, but lots of fun.
I mean, Shaman's one of those classes where even when you build it suboptimally, it's still really really good. I need to play one of those some day.
I created a Shaman of the Slums afor my home campaign as a villain and kept making him fall through doors to pop up behind the PCs, it was really silly and fun.
M Human Destined Urban Bloodrager 16 | HP 102/148 (118/164) | AC 54 (T31, FF54, CMD60) | F+26/R+28/W+30 (+2 vs fear, +5 vs mind-affecting) | Mv 40' | Init +9 | Per +24| Rage 30/36 | Spells 4/2/1/0 (6/4/3/2) | Active: Heroism, Barkskin, See Invis, Shield, FoM, Long Arm, Dance, Vigor, Tactical, BoF, Legendary
Dervak believes that the Aberrant thing that granted his father's desire (to acquire the orc bloodline) and cursed him is the same force at work here.
That's kind of a commentary on the pervasive board advice that blaster sorcerers should just decide to be orc/draconic crossblooded... What if a character who didn't have that ancestry wanted more destructive power? What would they do? What if it went wrong?
I leave it to the GM to decide if it is in fact the same force, or an allied or rival entity. And that reveal can play out over time. It is likely some sort of Outer God or Great Old One, though I don't have a specific one in mind.
Dervak believes that the Aberrant thing that granted his father's desire (to acquire the orc bloodline) and cursed him is the same force at work here.
That's kind of a commentary on the pervasive board advice that blaster sorcerers should just decide to be orc/draconic crossblooded... What if a character who didn't have that ancestry wanted more destructive power? What would they do? What if it went wrong?
I leave it to the GM to decide if it is in fact the same force, or an allied or rival entity. And that reveal can play out over time. It is likely some sort of Outer God or Great Old One, though I don't have a specific one in mind.
Quick note on the format: this beginning section is more or less scripted, so I am answering my own attack rolls. In the future for combat I will just make the rolls and allow you to respond on your turn
I prefer to stick with theater of the mind. I am mostly doing this on my phone and want to keep it simple. I will try to be specific about positioning in combat. If it is too difficult to conceptualize then I will work on getting maps integrated.
Male Half-Elf Swashbuckler (Inspired Blade) 1/Investigator (Empiricist) 2 | HP 24/24 | AC 18 (Touch 13, FF 15) | CMD 15 | Fort +1 Reflex +8 Will +3 | Init +3 | Low Light Vision, Perception +15
Yeah, what the others have said-you're doing pretty great. Sorry I haven't posted today, been busy at work all day. The end of the school year is always rough for us...never any time to slack off and post on forums, lol.
Any suggestions on how to do the maps? At the moment it looks like I'm going to make them on my computer, upload it to drive, then use dungeon sketch on my phone. Is there an easier method?
You guys are quiet! Hope everyone's week is going ok. It is currently Julius' turn, assuming he wanted to act after Oscar, then Mala. After that it goes to the top.
