Flintlocks and Feathered Hats (Inactive)

Game Master Treppa

What?! No secret Da Vinci weapons that could have changed history but obviously didn't because they never actually existed??? :-O

If you care to start such a game, sir, I will happily play. :)

♪♫ Oh what fun it is to plot... ♫♫♪

When you make up your characters, I will need information about your loved ones: family, friends (old or new), serious romantic entanglements, blood debts, etc. You don't have to post it, just send me an outline of the person's role, name, pertinent details.

Example:

Family:
Father: Romaine (deceased) - expelled me from family home for spilling red wine on the polar bear carpet.
Mother: Arugula (living) - married new husband, Radicchio, immediately after father's death two years ago.
Sister: Mizuna - 14, being groomed for a beneficial marriage
Brother: Kale - 12, has recently begun having mysterious maladies
Stepbrother: Endive - 8, highly favored by Radicchio
Family retainer: Butterhead, halfling servant
Former bethrothed: Cress, lost contact after expulsion

Location of family home is helpful, ties to major noble houses, etc. Let me know if you need noble house names or interesting locations.

MWAH-HA-HAAA

We're going by the book, not the movies. Not the TV series. Not the cartoons. No airships!

That pepperbox pistol sounds like a menace to everyone, including the wielder! Let me know what you find out, Rags.

AT first glance:

The pepper-box revolver or simply pepperbox (also "pepper-pot", from its resemblance to the household pepper grinder) is a multiple-barrel repeating firearm that has three or more barrels grouped around a central axis. It mostly appears in the form of a multi-shot handheld firearm. Pepperboxes exist in all ammunition systems: matchlock, wheellock, flintlock, percussion, pinfire, rimfire and centerfire.

EARLY YEARS: This type of firearm was popular in North America from 1830 until the American Civil War, but the concept was introduced much earlier. In the 15th century, several single-shot barrels were attached to a stock, being fired individually by means of a match.

So at first glance, it seems that a rudimentary version of the pepperbox was invented as early as the 1500's, but according to WIKI (Which we ALL know is FLAWLESS) ;P They didn't actually see 'popularity' until 1830's.

Will continue digging,...

Ah, here we are, an article saying the same things as from WIKI, but with better details, and pictures!

Pepperbox Pistol History Website

So, there WERE pepperboxes in the 16th century, using the 'match-lock' technology (Putting a lit fuse in the hammer, where the Flint in a flintlock would later reside) So yes, they ha dthese during DUMAS 3M time.

Popularity? another question.

But this puts the ones that I was thinking about, (Flintlock or percussion cap, smaller and easily concealable for ladies and gentlemen's self-defense) past the time of the setting we are emulating.

And I STILL recall reading about all these early firearms, but especially the multiple-chamber ones, being as much of a hazard to the owner as to the target!

I myself own ONE firearm, a Navy Colt Firearms replica (functional) of a Civil War Cap & Ball revolver.

Yes I have fired it. It sucks. I literally cannot hit the broad side of a barn with it, and I am a decent shot. :P

And, when I fire it, I cap over the end of the chambers with Crisco. To prevent misfires/ignition of the next chamber.
Crisco also makes it easier to clean afterwords. BONUS! ;)

Thanks, Rags. I just read a passage wherein d'Artagnan scoffed at the idea that he was in danger from a pistol shot. He said something like "After they miss, I'll stab them".

And that's the big issue -- rifling won't be invented for another 150 years or so -- it's all balls and smoothbore. Accuracy goes up with length of barrel, but then way, way down with range.

All that to say: Pistols were generally not considered reliably accurate until you were basically in dueling range anyway. Add to that the whole notion of honour (shooting a man, not so honourable -- but sometimes necessary) -- and so, yes, you fired your pistols as you closed and then drew your far more reliable, trusty rapier (especially if, like D'Artagnan, you were skilled with said blade).

Not to mention, firearms are loud - bad if you're trying to be stealthy - and take time to reload. That's why I'm not too worried about early firearms "breaking the game" or any such silliness. They'll add to the proper feel.

How are we doing on character builds? I have one each from pin and Mahorf, two from Leo, and interest from Meows, Rags, Tilnar, and myself. I'm waiting to see if you need a healbot, as usual.

I'm currently outlining the overall plot, but will need the final players and builds before I can finalize encounters. No rush, but there's that for design purposes.

Just out of curiousity, has anybody read, played, or run Second Darkness? Not like I'm considering lifting an encounter whole-cloth from that AP or anything... :)

I have not read, run, or played Second Darkness.

I know certain stuff about the story, but nothing about specific encounters and whatnot.

Continuing with possibles, the halfling Vigilante!

I was kind of in a holding pattern with build ideas until others stepped up -- to avoid stepping on toes in terms of role and abilities.

Alright, and here is the first "real" submission in case Treppa doesn't like all the silly nonsense submissions I made before. I'm sure none of you can guess the inspiration...

They may be a LITTLE silly, but I enjoyed reading all of them! :)

I'm still toying with ideas, I try not to get too set on something too early, as I have a hard time changing my mind about later. :P

I'm also making a concerted effort to avoid the playing a straight spellcaster. (As another board member once noted, 'Rags has made more Wizard characters than JK Rowling') ;P

However I think that a Magus or Dueling Cleric of Cayden would fit in nicely with both the game and my play style. :)

I did try to think if I could make a decently capable 'dueling Sorcerer', PC, but Either I'm just too tired and stressed with all of work, home, etc,.. or I just don't know the right combo of feats to make it capable. :P

I should be able to make a rough-draft PC in the next day or so. Sorry for the delay, but I am behind at work, and I should actually do work during the day.. ;P

If no one else wants to, I am willing to play a swashbuckling cleric of Cayden, I think playing with firearms and pointy things would be irresponsible without a healer on deck! ;)

And that's the big issue -- rifling won't be invented for another 150 years or so -- it's all balls and smoothbore. Accuracy goes up with length of barrel, but then way, way down with range.

All that to say: Pistols were generally not considered reliably accurate until you were basically in dueling range anyway. Add to that the whole notion of honour (shooting a man, not so honourable -- but sometimes necessary) -- and so, yes, you fired your pistols as you closed and then drew your far more reliable, trusty rapier (especially if, like D'Artagnan, you were skilled with said blade).

Yeah, all true. I mean there were sharpshooters, even with the older, unrifled barrels, (So you know they were GOOD) but in general if you were within 'sure kill' range with a pistol, you were almost close enough to use your sword, or a thrown knife. ;P

My black powder revolver has a Semi-Rifled barrel, and I STILL can't hit squat with it over half the time! :(

Granted, I am not a black powder expert, I may have been putting too little or too much powder in the chamber? :/

Clerics of Desna or Cayden work well for swashbucklers. That's what I would play if I needed to be the healbot. Most people don't like healing, so that's normally how I end up as a GMPC. So Rags, build whatever you like (even if it's the cleric!).

Rags, the way to do what you're looking with a full caster for is to head for EK. You get weapon specialization and bonus fighter feats, and with magical knack trait, you're still at full caster level, even with the dip into full BAB and the one dead-magic level. (Of course, you're behind on when you get the spells, but them's the breaks). There's a few bloodlines, if you go sorcerer, that make that interesting. (Though I might personally head for witch as my arcane class...)

That said, if you're willing to go partial-caster, Magus and bard (especially arcane duelist or archaeologist) are your friend.

Or you can just make the cleric or a warpriest. That also works.

Meows turned me on to fractional advancement for multiclassing. I'm find with using this if you want to multiclass to a prestige class. I once built a character that was so horribly multiclassed that she technically could have been BAB +0 at level 6 or 8.

(I built her at L14 as a kind of joke GMPC, and she turned out to be a heck of a lot of fun - no good at anything in particular, so she didn't overshadow the party, but she could do just about anything poorly. The "class" space on her sheet went on for two lines. :) )

Sorry, been stupid busy (OR just stupid, is also a possible thing) have not had time to make a PC.

Also,... having trouble deciding. They all sound like fun,

Although 'seriously' considering,...

-Swashbuckling cleric of Cayden (Have to check out Desna too)

-Swashbuckle-build Magus of some ilk

-Halfling Swashbuckler, possible Mouser archetype, or dip w/ Urban barbarian (suggested above) or something similar to give him a 'little' edge.
(See what I did there?) ;P
(My brain wanted to cross Mouser Swash w/ Alchemist, because I kept seeing a Halfling either shrinking to Tiny, or growing to Med using Mutagens and infusions. But I don't see how that would work long-term,)

Cayden is better for rapier proficiency (favored weapon). Swashbuckling with a starknife don't make it.

Cayden is better for rapier proficiency (favored weapon). Swashbuckling with a starknife don't make it.

Word! ;)

I built a swashy fighter for fun. Pretty tough looking. Weird thing about HeroLab is that I only built one level. I usually map a character out for 20. This is like driving at night with headlights that show 10' of the road. Maybe they have a planning facility.

You could do what you're looking for, Rags, with a 1-level dip to Alchie to get Mutagen and your first set of extracts. Level 1 bombs aren't amazing, but it's like making some of your own alchemist's fire every day. Or, you could go Vivisectionist and have a bit of sneak attack damage when you're flanking. Might be worth the dip (especially since Mousers flank with everyone if they do the "underfoot" thing and share their target's space)

So, we're looking like the least magicky party in Golarion. ;)

Based on current composition, I think I'm leaning bard -- either archaeologist or arcane duelist -- to have a wee bit of spellcasting. Just trying to figure out if I want to be a braggart, or just preternaturally lucky. Or both.

Yeah I do luv my casters, Is why I was thinking Magus as an option. :)

Sadly, I am SLOW at actually generating the PC's. (And choosing them, it seems) :(

What?!? It's not my fault they ALL sound like fun!

Hrm, Ok, I'm going to try and narrow it down,...

My primary choices are (because they DO all sound like fun!)

-Magus (Could use suggestions for swashy feats, etc, Not required to have dex to dmg,) ;)

-Halfling/Swashbuckler/Mouser- (Cuz it sounds fun!) w/ possible dip to regular or Vivi Alchemist for cool/oddball additions. ;P

-Cleric of Cayden- a-la swash. :)

I am going to try and get a basic generation going on these choices, maybe help me choose. Any suggestions regarding feats et al greatly appreciated. I'm only close to memorizing the ones to do with wizards. :)

I can play a casty if need be. Just built a fighter because Hero Lab. I don't mind playing anything. I'm easy.

This seems like a good campaign/background for teamwork feats, if that appeals.

So I'm thinking you will have access to the house guard's stable of light warhorses at need, with the permission of either the head of the guard or of the house.

Not sure what to do about lackeys. You're welcome to have a hireling to do for you. They're not expensive. If you decide to take them with you doing stuff, we'll have to stat them up; otherwise, it's unnecessary. Name and character description would be all that's needed.

Kinda cool name source if you need it.

Sorry guys and gals,

Been stoopid crazy (Still) at work. (Still have to get all of my June clients their contracts. I hate writing contracts.) ;P

AND we almost flooded last night/this morning (Water was AT the back door, closest its been in 8 years)

AND my daughter has some kind of knee problem, (Been hurting her, we just noticed that that knee is swollen a bit compared to the other) bad enough after a full week That I am taking her to the doctor in the morning.

AND I am procrastinating on my state taxes,...

And I made the mistake of downloading the new Pathfinder Adventures App,.... Yeah, THAT app is either gonna give me hours of enjoyment, or get me fired. Or both. :/

I am sorry for my delay. Does anyone know of a good, or at least decent, PF character making-app to help me make PC's quicker? It can be one of the many Excell versions I used to see on the site, or an app, or anything. (But I can't afford to spend money on Herolab or anything,...) :)

Thanks,

Kinda cool name source if you need it.

Oo, Nice source! Thx!

I use PcGen. It's slow, because it's all in java, but it works pretty well... (it has some problems with some of the newer archetypes, but it's generally quite functional -- plus, they do keep updating it over time).

...plus, since all the data files are text, it's not too hard to tweak.. well, once you get used to it.

Still, for about 97% of characters, it's great.

Cool, I'll give it a look-see!

Thx

Don't forget to mention our awesome random name sets. :)

Golarion has definite Earth-equivalent "feels" to a lot of its places, so I usually look at name lists for the appropriate country/countries that are being mimicked. Oh, for the good old days of random fantasy names. Neliti, we hardly knew ye. (which was true, because she was a thief)

Here's a list of random name sets included with PCGen, and many of those are broken down into time period specific names.

• 1920uscensus
  
• anglosaxon
  
• arabic
  
• english
  
• fantasy
  
• fantasy_craft
  
• fantasy-deverry
  
• fantasy-general
  
• fantasy-mar
  
• fantasy-middleearth
  
• flemish
  
• frankish
  
• french
  
• gaelic
  
• german
  
• gothic
  
• hispanic
  
• horror
  
• italian
  
• persian
  
• pictish
  
• roman
  
• russian
  

The party so far...

OK, here are the character concepts expressed to date:

Pinvendor (Serious):
Vigilante (magical child) - built
Ranger (dandy) - built

Ragadolf:
Magus
Cleric of Cayden
Swashbuckler (mouser)

Tilnar - holding for party mix:
Urban ranger, bard, slayer, warpriest?

Leoian:
Swashbuckler (daring infiltrator) - built
Gunslinger (musket master) - built

Mahorfeus:
Swashbuckler (mouser) - built

Meows:
?

Treppa:
Whatever we need to fill out the party. Healbot is OK with me.

Pinvendor pointed out this third party product which is PF compatible. A lot of it won't work for our game, but there are a few things I'd like to use if you guys don't mind:

Swashbuckling points: something like weak action points that refresh each "session" (day for our purposes).

Acrobatic combat: New actions for existing skills, particularly acrobatics, climb, and handle animal. These provide stats for fun and cinematic maneuvers for both mounted and unmounted combat.

Feats: There might be a couple of useful feats in here, but I need time to review.

If everyone is OK with using this book, I will post a synopsis of the pertinent sections in a limited Google Docs folder so everyone can see it.

The swashbuckling points don't overlap panache. They're more like weak action points or fate points. I didn't want them to interfere with class features, and it doesn't appear that they will. Instead, they'll let everyone get a swashbuckle or two in each day.

That does help -- getting some idea of what roles still need to be filled, that is.

As I suspected, there seems a lack of magic -- I'll throw together a couple of builds, likely one magicky and one not -- and see what fits. I'm kind of feeling the Porthos, party-hard type..

OK, so I've built an Urban Barbarian (who'll multiclasd Urban ranger) -- a Tiefling (with the nearly Human trait) as I said, in the Porthos vein. Didn't buy equipment yet, but mostly done.

Have also built a hedonist paladin of Arshea -- not totally hammered down, still debating archetype or not. He's human and may be taking Amateur Swashbuckler.

Working on two others:

Started building a Gunslinger who would take arcane levels and get to EK -- thinking illusion and enchantment magic.

Started building a partial caster, I keep flipping between arcane duelist, archaeologist or a magus (who would take Flamboyant Arcana)

...

So, that said, I'm either making:
- the strongman/meatshield who will also track/trapfind
- a paladin hedonist (partial healer)
- a delayed full caster with pistol and rapier
- a partial caster, sneaky, dextrous guy (either with buffs or nasty offensive magic)

... Whatever will balance out the party. I like the warpriest idea, but my brain would rather play the hedonist paladin than a drunken warpriest.

Hedonist paladin amuses me. So much for the stick-in-the-mud image!

Hedonist paladin amuses me. So much for the stick-in-the-mud image!

Well, Pathfinder wiki says this about Arshea's church:

The Spirit of Abandon's temples are most likely found in artist's studios, burlesque parlors, and dance halls. Arshea's most devout followers endeavor to achieve sexual release daily (either solo or with partners), praise the beauty of the partners and self, and pray to Arshea while naked

So, yeah, sounds like fun. I suppose I could pick up a copy of Inner Sea Gods to see if there's more meat to it, but that seems a bad reason for a big purchase.

Thinking no on the holy gun -- since we're in a Firearms common (martial) world, it's not necessary -- and I hate the idea of needing to pay grit to smite evil (per shot).

Also, in starting to build the EK idea, I find myself taking the 1 level of martial as Swashbuckler rather than gunslinger (though I am debating taking Amateur Gunslinger so I can get Deadeye -- if it looks like it'll be useful.).

Sorry all, been frikkin busy at work.
(Show of Beauty & Beast on stage right now)

I think I've narrowed my choices down to 2,
-The mouser (Who'll likely be an almost straight Alchemist after his dip into Swashbuckler/Mouser)

-A Magus who thinks hes a swashbuckler. :)

Either one will likely help us with our current (seeming) magical shortage. ;)

Hopefully I'll be able to get to it by early this next week. ;P

I can type by talking now, so can finally do something!

I'm noodling on war priest in order to add a little magic and healing on top of fighting ability. Usually, I build sneak attack fighters for swashbuckling flavor. Naturally, the bulk of the damage is in sneak attack, not the base weapon damage. The war priest doesn't get that, so I was thinking I should get the most damaging one-handed martial weapon I could to lay down some base damage. That led to the idea of a war priest with a scizore - 1d10. I've never seen those before, but research shows that they were gladiator weapon used for parrying, blocking, and thrusting. That sounds darned swashbuckling to me.

Unfortunately, can't find a deity whose favored weapon that is, so I would have to burn a weapon focus feat in order to make the weapon all magicky and stuff. But if I opt for a deity with unarmed strike, I get improved unarmed strike for free. This is leading to a very odd build in my brain. Could be interesting.

EDIT: and as Mahorfeus points out, I get a weapon focus for free at first level anyway, so…

Wow. O_o

I'm fairly 2-dimensional in PC creation it seems. ;)

In my defense, I got NO sleep last night. (Was trying to get Daughter to pass online Spanish test. it wasn't pretty.) :P

So I'm feeling really creative right now. At work. Again.

Lucky I can feel anything. So,... Tired,... -_-

Still tired,...

New day,
Different show,...
;P

WHY do I continue to do SO much work for SO little pay?!?!? :/

Cuz I'm too darned nice, and a glutton for punishment is my usual response. :P

Then those are probably the correct answers. ;)