Fevered Dreams

Game Master JonGarrett

Yes, and only 3400gp. Bwahahahahahahahaaaaaaaaaa.

...

OK, you can also choose one less than that. I have had 33 other birthdays you can also celebrate.

Happy Birthday, Jon! You don't look a day over 3,400!

I always lie about my age. I'm actually older, but use a great moisturiser!

The souls of my enemies.

I think I'll celebrate the twentyfifth and get a Cloak of the Hedge Wizard (transmutation).

I'll just grab a +1 rifle or something.
The bonus would be better on my 2nd pistol, but I don't need a third pistol. :'D
Was wanting a rifle anyway.

Well, we're using Automatic Bonus Progression, so... XD

Yes, but I can only attune one weapon at a time (for now).

I'm tired and distracted. What do you guys think for one of these items for a striker melee type?

Rope of Climbing - more about out of combat utility than anything else.

Pauldrons of the Serpent - Remington has a good acrobatics skill, so I envision him moving to the other side of opponents for flanking purposes, and this will reduce the AoO risk of that... even if they do look ridiculous on a guy with no armor.

Cloak of the Hedge Wizard (abjuration) - Basically, a +1 to all saves and a bit of defense when I need it with that shield spell that won't interfere with the swashbuckler abilities.

Out of combat utility is always good when you've got plenty of stuff for in-combat situations. ^^

I have a flying ghost horse that can carry one person (other than me) at a time, if moving upwards is needed.

I may be a little slow to post and respond, as I've just found out my mother has cancer.

...you know the drill by now.

Wow. Take care. We can wait.

Oh, man. Good luck.

I'm so sorry, take all the time you need.

Hey, gang. I'm not saying I'm lost or confused, but if there was a lead for where we can look next, I must have missed it. Anyone else?

Sorry, I'm trying to be less 'And here's what you do next' with this one. You do have a few clues, however.

- The car. A strange car was watching the fight. Jim got a close up look at it, it's licence plate and punctured its tire, but hasn't shared any of that with the group yet.

- The Sword. Researching the sword further, at the local library or with another resource, might lead to something that can help find it. Cottin can also see it, regardless of the form its currently in.

- The King. Whoever it was just died, so looking into recent deaths might led to something useful.

- The Videos. Someone is making sure these clips are getting online, and staying online. Perhaps there's a clue within them.

For PbP, "here's what you do next" is often the best way to go. Choice paralysis happens way too easily. XD; That said, the sword itself seems like the big "thing", so looking into that might be best.

I agree that a little bit of railroading can be helpful in a PbP, but I'm also fine with Discussion discussions about "wait, what's going on?" now & then. It's sorting it all out IC that can be a slow and painful death.

And yeah, Jim's going to catch up with the group as soon as they're all done doing their thing. I hate to crash a party.

All, I'll be taking my family camping for the weekend. I'll be back Sunday night.

Remington was going to claim that the car had nearly splashed mud on his authentic costume, and then demand an apology from the owner or driver, and then not be satisfied with the apology... all to keep buying Jim time.

But he'll follow Nurai's lead now that she's gone in a different direction.

Man, are you guys better at character building than me (a low bar, I'm sure), or is Spheres of Might/Magic more powerful? One of you has regen, Jim is a rogue that can turn invisible, other PCs have shown some cool stuff that keeps impressing me, too.

What sticks in my craw is that when I came up with the idea for Remington, I loved the Picaroon archetype, which looks like it's intended to dual-wield a finesse weapon and a one-handed firearm. However, it's generally agreed that the archetype mechanics are terrible. The most obvious thing is that you need two free hands to reload a firearm, which a character does not have if they are dual-wielding. So, at best, you get one round of gun and melee attacks before you have to draw another gun or lose an entire round to reload or just revert to a standard one weapon melee style. I had hoped to overcome this by giving Remington a modern firearm that holds multiple rounds. However, as is also noted in the many discussions about this archetype is that many of the Swashbuckler's abilities and feats require a free hand to use, which is an obvious issue for dual-wielders. In the end I opted for a more standard swashbuckler with a non-optimized firearm themed archetype.

The part that gets me down is that I was looking over Jim's character sheet, and I see that he has these Sphere dual-wielding abilities that look like they overcome at least some of the issues I was having with trying to build Remington. However, I can't wrap my head around how the Sphere content works.

So, I guess my first question is, how do you apply Sphere abilities? What do you take out of a standard Pathfinder class to replace with Sphere stuff?

Spheres of Might reduces damage in order to apply various rider effects (mostly debuffs). Spheres of Power (<- magic) is stronger than Vancian in the early game, but weaker at the endgame (since it's largely linear power growth).

Basically, just think of Sphere talents as feat chains. In most cases, you pick up your base ability, then later abilities that make it better.

Anyway, it sounds to me like you'd want to use Spheres of Might with Remington. There's an 'Equipment' talent, Expert Reloading, that helps you reload as a move action. And that's basically fine, because Spheres of Might runs on Standard Actions (for the most part), so spending your move to reload won't really reduce what you can do. ^^ You can also get a talent to let you make unarmed strikes with the hand you're holding a firearm in (Gun Kata), which does good things when you need a hand free.

For a non-Practitioner, with the GM's permission, you can get some talent with Spheres of Might by trading your feats. Alternatively, there's the Dancing Blade archetype.

If you wanna rebuild Remington (probably after the scene in the burnt out building) then I'm happy with that.

...and if you want advise on Spheres, boy have you come to the right place. Our dear own Cerise is something of an expert on the subject, and I have a pretty solid understanding of the system too.

I think the other to recall is that all templates are not made equal. Nurai's, for example, comes with some nice passive buffs, but she hasn't been able to use a lot of the abilities, as they require Beloveds. And so far the only character whose stuck around is Aurora. And some are stronger - Aurora toned back her character recently because of how potent the Template she has is.

Actually, for a quick example of how SoM works in practice... let's use Cerise here. XD I wanna punch stuff... but what can I do BESIDES punching, eh?

The first thing I have is the Duelist sphere. This lets me deal a small but scaling amount of bleed damage when I successfully hit stuff (or disarm people, but I don't do that much). Of course, ultimately damage is damage, so it's a lot like having a Power Attack-style effect on my strikes. Except there's more blood all over my hands.

Of course, I'm not satisfied with just dealing a tad more damage (that, let's face it, isn't very meaningful at higher levels). So I also picked up a second talent from the same sphere, allowing me to reduce the foe's accuracy whenever I deal bleed damage (i.e. every strike). This scales with the bleed damage I do, and since it's a passive debuff added to my strikes, it's a very reliable way to make foes a bit less threatening once I've engaged them.

Together, these two effects are a lot like using one of the many "style" feat trees that monks and such enjoy. Your first talent lets you do X, and the second one adds Y whenever X happens.

This sort of ability-chaining is the heart of the Spheres system, and you can ultimately do quite a lot with one action if you invest smart. XD As my second Sphere - because you're not limited to one - Cerise learned how to trip foes and that'll help keep them close so she can protect others by being a distraction.

So my basic cycle is likely to be run up to enemy -> punch them -> trip them if they try to move away or if they don't because I have AoO's for days -> spend Sparkle Points to go on a Killing Spree (or Maul them, if their AC is really high) and keep punching them until they stop being a problem. Killing Spree requires a full attack, though, so I won't be able to keep dealing bleed damage (or use many other Spheres of Might effects, which require a Standard Action to benefit from). Thus, my choice is "full damage" or "less damage but more effects and mobility". Since I do stuff besides damage on a standard action hit, though, I'm not necessarily worse off if I can't get full attacks in. ^^

Cerise described it well as kind of like a feat chain. You grab a Sphere each time you gain a Caster/Practitioner level. That can be either a new sphere that gives you access to a new set of abilities, or it can be a Talent within a sphere you have, upgrading abilities you already have.

With Power (magic), you get expendable Spell Points every level and can spend feats to get more. Some effects can be done without Spell Points, and some cost more than one Spell Point. You can pick a theme or themes to ride with, like Jim's illusions, or Aurora's battle, weather, and whatever else she does. That way you don't get pigeon-holed into picking the "good" spells, and all of your powers will pretty much stay relevant forever, growing with you.

With Might, you pick weapon packages to decide what kind of fighter you want to be (I'm a gunfighter obviously), then you grab spheres that play into those. Like for me, the ranged spheres Barrage and Sniper make a lot of sense. Also the Equipment sphere helps me do cool things like reloading without a free hand, Tomb Raider style.

I could help you with your build if you want. I thought about offering before when you were having trouble, but I didn't want to throw out unsolicited advice.

There's also the Mixed Assault talent, designed for sword-and-pistol combat styles, and Impossible Reload to reload without a free hand (although a semiautomatic mitigates the problem).

I was in your same situation and I rebuilt my Picaroon into a Conscript, and I haven't regretted it once. While for Aurora, the Brute sphere allows me to blend attacks and maneuvers while her BAB is still too low for a full attack, while my regeneration is due to the template.

Nobody has lost me so far, but my initial question remains: what do I give up to be able to use the Sphere content instead? With SoP, it seems I just don't use the standard spell casting progression, but what do I not use to be able to use Spheres of Might?

Or am I looking at this wrong, and I just build the whole character from scratch using a Spheres class? Because I've been working under the immpression that I start with a Pathfinder class and then switch out some abilities for Spheres content.

Alternatively, there's the Dancing Blade archetype.

Are these archetypes just a collection of Sphere abilities in one package, or are they something different?

If you wanna rebuild Remington (probably after the scene in the burnt out building) then I'm happy with that.

Maybe, thanks! But I'd have already wanted to see how Remington performs in combat since I put the effort into his current build. And I expect Jennifer will be back next adventure.

I think the other to recall is that all templates are not made equal. Nurai's, for example, comes with some nice passive buffs, but she hasn't been able to use a lot of the abilities, as they require Beloveds. And so far the only character whose stuck around is Aurora. And some are stronger - Aurora toned back her character recently because of how potent the Template she has is.

Optimization has never been a priority for me, but I had this great vision for how I wanted Remington to look, so I was disappointed when the archetype didn't work out. I'm pretty happy with Jennifer's build, but if I get the hang of Spheres stuff, I'll probably at least look at what Jennifer would look like if I used that content.

I could help you with your build if you want. I thought about offering before when you were having trouble, but I didn't want to throw out unsolicited advice.

Thanks! If I decide to do it, I'll throw it up in this Discussion thread for criticism.

my regeneration is due to the template.

Ah, okay. I think I realized that at one point, actually.

So, for me to be a Sphere Practitioner for SoM, I had to give up half of my Rogue talents and Trapfinding. And I'm an "Adept" practitioner, so I operate at 3/4 speed (just like my BAB). But thanks to sinking my feats & such into it I was able to build what I wanted.

For me to use SoP, I had to take another archetype called Talent Thief offered by the Spheres system. This one was designed to be used on the unchained rogue and basically peels off the unchained extras in favor of half-casting (which is why my casting is so limited).

You can also use the Spheres base classes, which can be cool, but I was trying to get something rather specific and I felt that splicing up a rogue was the best choice for me.

To get Spheres of Might, you either:

A) Give up certain feats from leveling based on how many talents you want to get (your choice of low or medium),

B) Take an archetype that grants you talents (like Dancing Blade), or

C) Use a Practitioner (Spheres of Might-using) class.

Cerise here traded some feats, since the Sparkle Princess isn't normally a Practitioner. ^^

Okay, thanks all.

Nurai is super dangerous though.

Apparently, the Shadow has feelings from nearly getting its ass handed to it and is now in for sweet, ass-kicking revenge..

To be fair, it's a Pathfinder rule to not split the party. When real people investigate things, they often split up.
But yeah I hope we don't all die alone.

It's less you won't die alone - while Aurora did encounter a monster designed for the whole party, it was in it's character enough for it to play with her, and her character is tough enough that she could live - and more the effort it takes me to run too many scenes at once. Unfortunately, my work life has been hectic recently, and I'm very tired at the moment. Combined with some other bits...

Which is all entirely my problem. You guys are free to split up as you feel maximises your efforts and fits your characters. I won't punish you for it.

...the dragon was always meant to be in the Garage bathroom stall.

That's the worst time to fight a dragon too. Because you don't go in there without some pressing other business.

"Oh! I didn't know that someone was in here! Sorry. You should lock the door. See? Just slide this little thing--AGH SO MANY TEETH!"

That's the worst time to fight a dragon too. Because you don't go in there without some pressing other business.

In fairness, you'd quickly find a place to go in that event.

But let's be serious: would we really want a bathroom dragon's hoard?

As a high-Charisma character, no.

King of Fever was murdered, right? Or did I just infer that?
Or is that player knowledge that I accidentally bled over?

Yeah, I can't remember, either.

I don't think it's been stated what happened to them.

Anyway it should work for the phone call.

The obituary said he died in a fire, I'm not seeing anything where any of us or the public was told it was suspicious.

It probably is suspicious but whether our characters are that genre savy is up for debate/how many skill points we put in Lore (genre).

If you could nail the means, motive, and opportunity of a case, you usually had a pretty good idea of who to investigate. Or so she'd learned from an article she was reading on her phone that definitely wasn't content marketing for a detective service trying to drum up business.

HAR!

She wanted to be the first to meet any threat - the more things focused on her, the safer everyone in the group would be.

Is it wrong that every time Cerise thinks something like this in the Gameplay thread, I feel more and more that it's inevitable that something terrible is going to happen to her?

Yeah, but where's the fun in not tempting fate? XD ...Besides, she really is pretty durable. I don't play in tanking roles too often, so I'm trying to enjoy it while I can.