Build Guidelines
Level One
Triple Gestalt
Mythic Tier 1 (pick 1 bonus path ability)
30pt buy
+2 divine bonus to AC
+4 divine bonus to saves
+2 skill ranks per level
Starting gold: none
It's recommended that you take the Divine Source path ability at least once during the campaign. After all, you won't be able to answer your followers' prayers without it. It's also recommended to Dual Path, as the extra versatility will be useful. Keep in mind that these are recommendations, not requirements. It's your character.
If you want a Legendary Item, let me know, and we'll work something out together. For example, my fallen deity Astoroth has the "Book of Truths": a collection of all written knowledge. It boosts his INT and will increase in power as he levels, eventually becoming an intelligent magic item. As before, this is not required - or even recommended. I'm just letting you know that it's an option.
Fluff Requirements
Picture
Other Titles
Areas of Concern (pick 3-5 thematically-appropriate domains)
Favored Weapon
Holy Symbol (include picture if possible)
Sacred Animal
Sacred Color
Deific Obedience
Aphorisms
In your backstory, leave the circumstances of your death vague to nonexistant. One of the major arcs of the campaign involves figuring out what happened to you.
I should also mention that I'm a huge fan of the "Spheres of Power" magic system. If you're planning to take any levels in a spontaneous casting class and are interested in using that system instead of Vancian casting, let me know.
Negative. It was a hugely-successful Kickstarter last year. Essentially, the system has 20 "spheres" that each correspond to a basic concept (eg Life, Alteration, Creation, Nature, etc). Instead of spell levels, it uses a talent-based system. Each sphere has a base ability that can usually be used at-will when you unlock it. As you put more talents into the sphere, you unlock more options. You can also spend Sphere Points (like an Arcane Pool) to augment the various powers. Here's a couple examples.
Conjuration Sphere
Base Ability: summon an outsider to serve you (similar to an Eidolon)
Duration of concentration, but you can spend a sphere point to make it last 1min/level
Spending talents in this sphere will allow the conjured creature to last longer, gain various evolutions, spawn with weapons/armor, etc.
Destruction Sphere
Base Ability: at-will touch attack that deals bludgeoning damage
Spend a sphere point to increase the damage
Spending talents in this sphere will allow you to change the damage type, make it an AoE, add rider conditions, etc.
Also of note, most of the sphere abilities scale with your level.
Basically, "Spheres of Power" operates much like Skyrim's skill system. The base sphere abilities are generally like super-powerful cantrips. If you invest in the tree, you'll be able to access more powerful options. Just like unlocking Skyrim's TWF skill lets you use two weapons. If you max out the skill tree, you're running around decapitating people with ease.
Compared to Vancian casting, the system is more powerful at low levels but loses some of the more specialized spells. For example, a spherecaster can be chucking around baby fireballs at Level 1, but there's no real equivalent to black tentacles.
It's a bit expensive but well worth it. As I own the PDF, I'm also perfectly able to get you all the information you need about any spheres that seem interesting. While they have conversions for all the Core classes, nothing from the APG/UC/UM/ACG has been touched yet. There's a Google doc floating around the forums with conversions, and I also have my own take on Oracle spherecasters. And, of course, if you do a bit of research and then decide you'd rather skip spherecasting, that's 100% okay with me too. This campaign is incredibly flexible and player-driven. :-)
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This campaign is already pretty far off the typical power-level expectations so it's a perfect test bed for wacky things. I'm down to give spheres a shot. =)
Are you offering the template buy-off option I see most people using? How does that work with starting at level 1? Would I just be missing a class to start off?
Do you mind if I use the character I originally applied to Rednal's game with? All of the fluff is already done for him.
From a power-level standpoint, it's definitely way off the beaten path. Rednal's PC just soloed Feast of Ravenmoor at Level 2. :-) I'm using my PC to test out spherecasting as well, so it'll be fun to get a second opinion. Based on your fluff, you'll probably be most interested in the Enhancement and Alteration spheres. The former is where you'll find bull's strength, magic weapon, and the like. The latter is where you'll find the shapechanging stuff.
The template buy-off option is available (I think you were interested in the Giant Creature template). Basically it takes the place of one of your levels. Example: my PC is an Advanced Sylph Brawler//Incanter. At Level 2, he'll gain three classes as usual for gestalt. You only get a single template, though, so choose carefully. :-)
Skaar is completely fine with me, by the way. I may want you to eliminate the paragraph about his death, but the rest of the fluff looked okay. I already have several ideas for him....
Awesome. I'll work on cleaning him up.
Tell me about enhancement, alteration, and protection. Also I'll be taking Oracle as Skaar's caster class. How does that interact with spheres?
You'll get access to either the Life or Death sphere for free. You'll also gain 2 talents. These can be used to unlock new spheres or upgrade the ones you already have. Each time you level, you'll gain 1 additional talent. Your Spell Pool is equal to CL + CHA mod.
Alteration
Base Ability - Shapeshift: standard action transform yourself or touched creature. Duration: concentration. Spend a spell point, and it lasts 1min/level. Basically, transforming gives you access to a list of traits (claws, bite, darkvision, cosmetic changes, etc). You grant 1 trait + 1 per 5 caster levels. Upgrading this sphere gives you more trait options (pounce, flight, etc), lets you transform into different kinds of creatures (dragons, elementals, etc), and lets you affect multiple creatures at once. This is also where you'd find equivalents to enlarge/reduce person. You can also reduce a target's intelligence to 2.
Death
Base Abilities - Reanimate (spend a spell point for animate dead), Ghost Strike (at-will ranged touch of fatigue, spend a spell point to make target exhausted instead). Upgrading this sphere lets you animate more, stronger undead and/or modify your ghost strike. This is where you'd find enervation, bestow curse, vampiric touch, and most of the other necromancy stuff.
Enhancement
Base Ability - Enhance: standard action to give a weapon/armor/shield a +1 enhancement bonus (+1 per 5 caster levels). Duration: concentration. Spend a spell point, and it lasts 1min/level. Upgrading this sphere lets you animate objects, enhance multiple objects at once, enhance ability scores, negatively enhance a creature, and give weapons special properties. Basically, it's the Magus' Arcane Pool, bulls' STR/fox's cunning/owl's WIS,etc, blindness/deafness, etc.
Life
Base Abilities - Invigorate (at-will temp HP equal to your caster level; can't go over max HP), Cure (spend a spell point for CLW), Restore (spend a spell point for ability damage/condition removal). Upgrading this sphere improves your Cures and increases the types of conditions that can be Restored. Basically it's the healing/condition removal sphere - pretty straight-forward.
Protection
Base Abilities - Ward (creates an invisible barrier to block attacks, spend a spell point to make it last 1 round/level), Aegis (spend a spell point to grant a scaling Deflection bonus to AC for 1 hr/level). Upgrading this sphere gives you different kinds of Wards (energy resistance, sanctuary, magic circle against Evil, etc) and Aegis (scaling armor or shield bonus, DR, saving throw bonuses vs specific effects, etc). It also lets you reshape your Wards and dismiss your Aegis early to cause various effects.
Definitely taking Life and Protection. Not sure on the third but I'm leaning towards Alteration.
I'd eventually like ogre crush for Skaar. I'll find a way to get Skaar large by default. Alteration would be good for fitting through human-sized doorways. =P
As for the background, what was it about his death that I should change? I left it kind of open ended.
Well, the Giant Creature template will cover the size requirement. :-)
Background-wise, get rid of how your death affected the world. It's fine if Skaar fought back against his attacker/s, but the repercussions of his loss are currently unknown. The campaign's called "Forgotten God" for a reason. ;-) Also, the first post in Gameplay will involve my waking you up.
Gotcha. I removed those few lines.
Giant solves the size problem but advanced is soooo good.
I was going to take display of strength but would large size be a fair trade for a mythic path ability?
I bit the bullet and bought the PDF. =P
It turns out I misunderstood your previous post. How many spheres do oracles get access to in addition to the free one?
Edit:
After reading a bit more I learned that talents unlock spheres. In that case it'll be Life (free) and Protection with Armored Magic. Having read more I'm rather excited about this system.
Yes, it's a really fun system. Based on my playtesting, it's a small nerf to full casters, but it feels like a buff. For insurance, detect/read magic aren't cantrips, but they're way more versatile. Plus, putting one talent into the Destruction sphere gets you an at-will scaling blast - now you're a Warlock-lite. :-)
Skaar's more or less ready.
Were you agreeable to large size as a mythic path ability and/or feat?
Assuming you're a Half-Orc (not sure what a 'divine orc' is), I'm getting a 32pt buy. You may have shorted yourself one skill rank as well, but I need to doublecheck that when I have more time. Also, where is your natural armor coming from? I also need a more specific HP breakdown. It'll make bookkeeping easier for me down the road. That's all I noticed at first glance; I'll go through it more in-depth later.
Re: large size - let's hold off on that for now. I have something planned for later. Don't worry, you'll get it eventually. :-)
Yeah, divine orc is half-orc. He’s half orc/half god. =P
You’re right about the point buy. Hero Lab you’ve failed me! I’ll drop con by one.
The natural armor is from the advanced template. It gives +2 natural armor.
I’ll include that in the profile.
Sounds good. I'll hold off on large then.
You've shorted yourself a skill rank, as well. Should be 4 class + 1 INT + 2 bonus. I'm only counting 6 trained skills on your profile.
An unrelated question: tell me a bit about your preferred game types. Combat-heavy, social intrigue, planar-hopping, melodramtic angsty White Wolf LARP stuff, etc. Roll-play/Role-play balance. That sort of thing. Also, give me some likes/dislikes about Golarion. It's a massive hodgepodge of tropes, so I'm sure there's a couple regions that you favor more than others. For instance, I really like Nex and Geb, but Numeria doesn't really do anything for me. Finally, are there any Paizo scenarios/modules/AP sections that you have prior experience with/have no interest in/really want to play. "Forgotten God" is is highly player-driven, so this'll help me construct a framework that we'll flesh out together as the campaign progresses.
Oh, one other thing. While there'll be opportunities to get temporary companions throughout the campaign, Skaar's path is predominantly going to be a solo one. A major theme of "Forgotten God" is isolation. Also, your character WILL die at least once for story purposes. Just giving you a heads-up.
You’re right again on skill points. Damn you Hero Lab!
Skaar’s a bruiser so combat should be predominant but not everything has to be a fight to the death. Bar fights and wrestling competitions would also be ‘combat’ I’d enjoy with Skaar but isn’t necessarily combat in the traditional sense. I like the notion that not every fight has to be a fight (in the sense that you roll initiative and make attack rolls). I enjoy my share of NPC interaction and roleplaying as long as it doesn’t get too drawn out to the point where I lose track of the actual adventure. I was in a game once where we roleplayed out three or four in-game days across six months real life time. That was not fun.
Golarion lore is hit or miss for me. I like most of the barbaric cultures (the ulfen, shoanti, mammoth lords, etc) and the River Kingdoms stuff but I don’t like the super high-magic areas or the Asian-themed regions. I’m not usually a big fan of plane-hopping as a genre but I could see it working well in this campaign once Skaar gets settled into his role.
As for general themes, I enjoy redemption, pioneering, and heroics. With that in mind you’d think Wrath of the Righteous and Kingmaker would be favorite APs of mine but I really felt like they both missed the mark. The redemption story arcs are too heavy-handed in Wrath and Kingmaker was way too bogged down in subsystems and minutiae for my tastes. Funny enough, Skull and Shackles usually tops my list for favorite APs for really hitting the nail on the head as far as ‘adventure’ goes. Reign of Winter is a close second because I love me some pseudo norse/viking lore and the plane-hopping in it fits perfectly in my opinion.
Will the story-related death be prefaced in any way?
Also, I'd like a picture of Skaar (unless your profile avatar is an accurate rendition) and three-five areas of concern (basically Cleric domains). For example, my deity's portfolio covers Knowledge, Secrets, Mysteries, and Revelations. This will help me figure out thematically-appropriate divine powers to grant you as you regain your godhood.
Basically, your first death is a freebie. You have a very powerful PC, and the challenge rating of many enemies will be raised to compensate. Since this is a solo game, it's very possible that you'll die because of a failed saving throw or a badly-timed critical hit. That won't end your story, as there is a system in place to allow you to come back. However, even if you do everything right, your PC will have to die at some point. I can't explain why (that's part of the surprise), but it's not a bad thing. I just wanted to give you a heads-up in case I have to work in a "rocks fall" moment down the road. I highly doubt it'll come to that, though. Solo games have a low margin of error by their very nature.
His appearance shifts subtlety depending on the peoples he’s near. When he was among his own kind his features were more savage (per the profile image). Among others that might find him intimidating like humans his form shifts to be less monstrous.
His portfolios are summed up pretty well in his background:
Skaar, the Unfailing Pillar, is an ancient god of strength, independence, and later hope. Though he has roots in the orc pantheon, like the elven goddess Calistra, he had worshipers among many peoples and went by different names to each of them. It's important to note that he's a god of strength but not a god of war. His servants were dreamers, loners, visionaries, and heroes.
If you’d like I can expand on that or add a few more.
That works. I was mainly curious if there were any specific domains that really matched your concept. I can work with what you have. :-)
I'm thinking you're just about set. I'll need a little time to flesh out the plot a bit more, but we should be good to go by next week (at the latest).
EDIT: Oh, aside from APs, how much experience do you have with PFS scenarios and/or Paizo-published modules? While there'll be a fair bit of homebrew material, I'll also be drawing heavily from published works and want to make sure I give you a fun experience.
Sounds good!
I have quite a bit of experience with PFS. I'm a four star DM!
Awesome! I'm a two-star GM and former store rep. I can't do much RL gaming anymore, but it was fun while it lasted.
I recognized most of the content Rednal was using and Feast of Ravenmore but ‘replaying’ content doesn’t bother me overmuch and I’m pretty good at not acting on player knowledge.
I expected as much but wanted to make sure. It should be particularly interesting being able to experience Paizo material from a non-Pathfinder perspective. Skarr's probably never heard of the Society, after all, so it wouldn't make sense for Drandle Dreng to wake him up in the middle of the night with a mission. ;-) Rednal's PC started out by playing The Darkest Vengeance in reverse - at least until Valeros and co. showed up.
Skaar’s definitely never heard of the Society. The Society is old but it’s not that old.
He would have gotten along with Adril Hestram. =(
Progress Update: With some help from my wife, I have a suitably epic plot for you. Classic heroic "save the world" stuff, so it should be perfect for Skaar. I'll get things up and running in the next few days. :-)
Sweet! I'm excited. =)
Thank the wife for me.
And we're off! Please put your vital statistics in a spoiler for easy access. Same thing with your daily abilities. Thanks. :-)
Done!
I snatched the format you used for Astoroth.
Looks good. :-) Don't forget to mark off your used Mythic Power.
Don't worry: I'm just reusing NPCs from S&S. I'm not making you play solo through the AP. ;-)
Heh. I've always been fond of those NPC folios.
I'm going to assume that post in your goblin game was meant for me. =P
I'm also going to assume that Harrigan's budget was only for normal gear not fancy magic items.
bardiche
javelin x5
maybe some curative potions
If he'll splurge for masterwork gear that'd be good.
Fighting a cold; will update tomorrow.
Bummer. =(
Hope you feel better.
Just read your Gameplay stuff. Tell me how you plan to go about asking Peppery Longfarthing (good guess about her being a mage, by the way) for assistance. How much information are you going to reveal about yourself?
As for the ladies, give me one Diplomacy roll for each of them. ;-)
I'll put up a substantive update tomorrow when I'm feeling a bit better.
Heh, I’m not that clever. I’m pretty sure you described her as a mage.
Skaar will give Peppery plenty of half-truths: He didn’t get along well with his family so wandered a lot. He had lots of friends all over but no place he called home. At some point he was attacked by ‘someone’ and left for dead – those people might still be after him. He can’t get into the specifics but there’s people that need him (his worshipers).
I’m not sure how her magic will work. If it’s visual instead of mental she might learn the truth that way.
Sorry about the delay in updating. You're doing a few unexpected things, so I'm having to work harder. :-) I'll get it up tomorrow after work.
Heh, okay.
*pulls up a comfortable chair*
*cracks his knuckles*
"Let's do this"
*begins typing furiously*
Short of overthrowing Harrigan, the Wormwood is a bit shy of opportunities to work miracles and inspire the downtrodden crew.
Does Skaar have any reason to believe that putting a beating on Plugg might stir their spirits? I was under the impression he's been on his best behavior since Skaar arrived.
Plugg's not around yet, but Scourge is. :-) You'll make quite a few people happy, but Harrigan will be pissed.
Out of town for Mothers Day weekend. Will update in a couple days. Also, you're not sure who or what Syl is referring to.
Back home, but life's been crazy busy for the last couple days. Will try to update tomorrow. What do you want to talk to Peppery about?