GM Kate's Ruins of Azlant (closed) (Inactive)

Game Master Kate Baker

Prepare to set sail!

So there is no hurry to get your characters done, since I won't have a post up until the weekend at the earliest. However, I wanted to get some Session 0 stuff posted now. I'd like to talk about some campaign specific stuff, my house rules, and safety tools for the campaign.

GM Kate "Terrifying Avatar" Baker's Ruins of Azlant

Campaign stuff

As you build your characters, consider this campaign! It is not necessary to be amphibious, but you do want to be pretty good at swimming and not have your combat stuff completely negated underwater. The underwater combat rules are reprinted in the Player's Guide for your convenience.

The default expectation for the beginning of the adventure is that you applied to be a part of this expedition, setting sail from Andoran. If you want a different introduction for your character, send me an email or PM and we'll work it out.

Only the first two books of this adventure are out so far. I'm not worried about us catching up to the release, but as I can't read the whole AP in advance, there might be some sudden shifts in how I run an NPC or something, based on new information.

Kate's House Rules

Hey, we don't have to run RAW! Here are my house rules, some of which I've used in the past.

1. This probably won't come up much, but you can make untrained Knowledge (local) checks for your hometown.

2. You get one free skill rank at character creation to put somewhere flavorful, like craft, profession, or perform (though perform is obviously not just flavor if you are a bard or something!).

3. In the past, I've allowed Precise Shot without the Point Blank Shot pre-req, but I'm leaning toward running this Starfinder style and eliminating the penalty for shooting into melee altogether. Cover and concealment still apply normally, and this will apply to the enemies as well. Also, and this is not so much a rule as a request, I prefer for the person being shot at to handle cover since it is an AC bonus, not an attack roll penalty.

4. Character creation will be point buy. Assume ~20, but as I mentioned, the point buy might be a little bit different based on people's builds and unusual races. I'm also open to suggestions on how to level the playing field. I know that no one here will deliberately build a game-breaking character, but I don't want anyone to feel underpowered in relation to other characters.

5. I may adjust crafting a bit, but I may just see how it goes for a while. I would request that whoever invests in crafting please craft items for the whole party, again to avoid imbalance.

Safety Tools

X Card
I like the idea of implementing this in PBP. Type an X if the game has gone somewhere that makes you uncomfortable. If someone types an X after you've posted, please take your post down if it's still possible while we sort things out. Do not keep posting on the same topic once someone has raised an X card.

Lines and Veils
This is a useful concept for talking about boundaries. A veil is something that can still happen in the game, but you would prefer for it to happen off-screen or after a "fade to black." A line is a hard boundary. You do not want this thing to happen at all.

Example: torture of a prisoner for information
Veil: Another PC can torture a prisoner, but you don't want them to write what they're doing. They might make a few skill checks in spoiler tags with me, and then return to the group with information.
Line: No PCs will torture anyone, even off-screen. The party will find other ways to get information.

If anyone has boundaries that they'd like to discuss before the game, please do so! You're also welcome to message me privately if you'd prefer.

And last of all, some initial boundaries!

Lines
No sexual assault, period. I'd really prefer that it not even be part of your back story.
No bigotry. I don't think that it's fun for there to be a misogynist or racist in the party. If I need to portray an NPC as a bigot, I will either give y'all a heads-up here, or put it behind spoiler tags with a content note.

Veil
Obviously, there's going to be violence, but I am really not into super detailed gruesome descriptions. You can describe how you land the killing blow, but please don't detail out the blood and gore.

If I didn't already have one in PFS, I'd play an undine watersinger bard. You get to control the water by singing, how cool is that?

Anyway, I'm still working on my character concept. I was considering a fetchling shadow caller summoner, but I feel like I want something more ocean-y.

Reposting my character notes, should folks be curious. Basically: know stuff, blast stuff, do some light buffing. For the latter, primarily giving other folks' weapons enhancement bonuses, but we'll see what other spells shake out as play progresses.
I'm interested in the crafting route, since a construct constructing things seems pretty apt! I'd definitely Craft Wondrous Items for the whole party, and I'm strongly considered the related campaign trait.

Dennis, there's some cool new archetypes in both Aquatic Adventures and Blood of the Sea, if you haven't checked those out!

Thanks. I just bought Aquatic Adventures for that reason. I'm leaning toward an aquakineticist right now, though I haven't picked a race yet.

Thank you for setting this up and clearly outlining your ground rules so clearly, Kate! I have a couple questions:

Underwater combat

I would like to play a melee-centric Locathah, but have a question that is not addressed in the player's guide. Do creatures with the aquatic subtype get penalized when using natural weapons or unarmed strikes underwater?

I came across this post from James Jacobs that seems to address the concern I had, but it's also not RAW:

My take: Creatures that have the aquatic type don't have to worry about those penalties... but ALL manufactured weapons must abide by these rules, regardless of whether or not the creature wielding them is aquatic.

If I want to play a natural attacker with a dip in unarmed monk, should I take a feat like Aquatic Combatant, or will my PC be okay since it will have the aquatic subtype?

Traits and Stuff

Are we using traits, or anything like that? I don't have a preference either way; I enjoy the flavor, but they can also cause power creep.

Thanks!

Potential builds

I am leaning toward playing a melee-oriented Locathah, and am considering two builds right now:

1. A Shadow Walker based on an anglerfish theme.
If the party has a front-line melee, this would be my choice. It would also be lots of fun if everyone had darkvision.
2. A dirty trick-focused kraken caller of Besmara.
This PC could roll with either a companion or domain, depending on party makeup. For this build I would also like to take multiattack and possibly a couple possessed hand feats for flavor (I mean, every pirate-druid needs to get their hand lopped off and then possessed!). As you know, the possessed had feat chain is not PFS legal, nor is multiattack.

Those are my two general ideas right now. I'm really not partial to either at this juncture, and will play whatever best fits the group.

Hi all, and thanks Kate!

I'd like to play a changeling trans man. I'm thinking he's an employee of the company and maybe they helped pay for his potion of gender fluidity (although maybe they didn't know that's what he did with the money), so he's indebted to them. Perhaps this is the reason he was in Almas. He was born female as changelings are but never identified that way. And even now is still terrified of "the call" and has nightmares of turning into a hag.

He hopes that the new colony will finally be a chance for him to escape and start a new life as his true self. Everything is going to be better from here on out!

He's probably familiar with Ramona Avandth, the second colony's leader, although he may look a little different from the last time she saw him. He has a gregarious, camp counselor kind of vibe, but has a guarded interior.

My big question is class. I'm kind of thinking of the Deep Shaman, but I don't want to only be successful underwater. Also, I don't normally play full casters, so that's a little overwhelming for me too. I'm a little stuck

I would normally play a roguish character, but if there TWO DOUGS PLAYING ROGUES in the same campaign the universe will implode or something.

Good questions, Doug!

It seems reasonable to me that creatures with the aquatic subtype don't take penalties on natural attacks or unarmed strikes. I've certainly played it that way before: my druid went shark form in her last scenario for an underwater battle, and I assumed she didn't take penalties while in an aquatic shape.

Yes, you definitely get traits! I'd say two, and I'd encourage you to select a campaign trait.

Possessed hand is hilarious and approved. Multiattack is a monster feat, but I'd allow that as a power-levelling adjustment, since locathah is a 10 RP race and wyrwood is 20. (Bite, tentacle, tentacle?)

Ha ha. If you want two rogues, it's fine with me! Play what you think will be fun.

Thanks Kate.

Sounds good on the multiattack too (that's correct: bite, tentacle, tentacle). FYI I'd also be open to retraining a feat if it gets too crazy. Or, you know, the world implodes from Doug H rogues.

Here is the inspiration for the rougarou aquakineticist I'm working on. "Oh boy, let's go in the water! I love going in the water!!"

Red Hat Doug (I can't even use Doug H with you guys!), if I'm reading Deep Shaman right, you'll still have access to a wandering spirit, and all of your Waves spirit abilities work on dry land. So that stuff should still be effective regardless of your level of hydration! I definitely feel you on the full caster analysis paralysis, though. Prepared spellcasters, oof.
I like the changeling idea, too, and Blood of the Coven just came out! Might be some good stuff in there for you; I know that, at the very least, there are variant changeling heritages in the aasimar/tiefling/skinwalker vein.

One note on party composition, and one based more in my personal GM failings - when I ran House on Hook Street, my PCs had no real front line or "bag of tricks" caster. Support-y mesmerist, support-y damage-ish psychic, two weapon fighting slayer, healing focused oracle that had neat tricks, but ones that didn't mesh well with the party.
They had a real problem addressing a wide variety of threats. Lots of enemies were immune to mind-affecting effects, which means the mesmerist and psychic had to sit on their hands a lot. The slayer's TWF got messed up by DR, and because they were the only melee, they often bore the brunt of status effects or grappling or what have you that the party didn't have a way to relieve them of. Three out of the four PCs relied heavily on magic, which means SR or golems (oh lord the blood golem) shut them down hard. They ended up in several situations that just... weren't fun, because they couldn't effectively address some challenges.
I still feel bad that I didn't steer the party towards more effective choices, not out of a "you're not playing the game right" approach, but in order to make sure they could deal with the module's challenges in fun ways.

I'm not sure I made a cogent point above, but basically, let's make sure we can handle a multitude of situations, and that we don't have all our eggs in one type of basket. It looks like we're already headed down the right track, but since the Hook Street thing is my most recent chargen experience, I wanted to have an eye on it!

Lines:
Same as Kate, hard line on sexual assault and bigotry. That's it for me, but if other things come up I trust we can handle them maturely!

Wyrwoods:
Interesting, Inner Sea Races says they can be resurrected!

"Not all of the races presented in this book appear on the following table—androids, for example, are beyond the scope of a reincarnate spell to create (although dead androids and wyrwoods can themselves be reincarnated, they have no chance of coming back in the same type of body)."

We'll see if that comes up, but if it does that would be a huge character development moment.

Re party composition: This is why I'm going to choose the druid. 9th level caster with frontline focus. Right now I'm trying to figure out how to make it dex based and still above average in melee… druid feats get so tight!

By the way, for the mechanical side of character creation, I really enjoy this guide: https://rpgwillikers.wordpress.com/2015/09/29/bench-pressing-character-crea tion-by-the-numbers/ — the author tries to address many of the issues you specifically brought up, without being too optimization-driven.

Travelin' starting tomorrow morning, so posts may be minimal 'til Monday PM!

No worries on that, Andrew! I didn't really expect to start posting any substantial until Sunday anyway.

As people work on your characters and backstories, please let me know if your character will not be starting off from Andoran with the colonists, and we'll work out your introduction.

Vague thoughts before passing out after a day of travel:
Lil' wooden man is the progeny of a wyrwood exclave in Avistan, folks who were looking for the race's Azlanti origins. They're probably still around, but lil' wooden man is the only one who's applied to the colonist expedition.
(plus all the other existential crisis Pinocchio stuff)

How's Purpose Creche for the name of a weird lil' wooden dude who makes things, but who also is looking for their place in the cosmos?
Too on the nose/cheesy? Maybe just Creche?

I have a 5e Bard named Weary Chant, so you won't get any complaints outta me about an on-the-nose name.

A couple more little administrative things:

Go ahead and use 150gp starting gold for everyone.

We'll use milestone leveling, not XP.

I like high side of average hit points as PFS does, but if people really like rolling for hit points, we could do that.

The party right now sounds like it's shaping up to be wyrwood occultist, locathah druid, changeling synthesist summoner, and rougarou aquakineticist.

Of those, I think the kineticist could use a little boost, so I'd like to allow Dennis an extra 3 points in the point buy, which he's using to build up an off-stat. This is a gut feeling and not an in-depth analysis, so if someone else feels like they need a boost (or something like access to a monster feat like Doug's getting), please speak up! Otherwise, I think people are good to finalize their characters.

(And seriously, I am such a softy GM. I've let Dennis tweak his character in my homebrew campaign like three times.) I'll get the first substantive post up this weekend, with a mini-post tonight!

Cool, thanks Kate for the summary.

I appreciate your efforts to keep everyone balanced.

My character is coming together and I don't think there's anything he needs at this point.

I'm so looking forward to starting this AP!

I worked on my character last night. I think I'm actually going to go spear-weilding Goliath druid who's into gargantuan abyssal creatures (whales, squid, etc), shapechanges into large scrags, and then at level 12 some kind of giant with regeneration & rend; level 14 would be ocean giant form.

No animal companion; rage domain instead.

Going through the numbers. the Kraken caller just seems ineffective as a frontliner and is more built around being a dirty trick CMB machine. I'm not so interested in that kind of specialty. Hope that sounds good to you and doesn't drastically alter any GM plans you had.

Couple things I would like to confirm before finalizing this plan:

- Polymorph & Type: First time I'm playing a druid. If I am understanding the rules right, a shapechanged creature's type/subtype doesn't actually change, so a wild shaped druid wouldn't lose the aquatic subtype (conversely it doesn't gain any of a creature type's racial abilities, unless they are called out in the polymorph rules or spell). Overall, I just want to make sure that this PC can cast underwater without making concentration checks.
- Heavy Armor underwater vs Swim Speed: how do these interact with one another? Would the creature's swim speed be reduced by the same % as armor would on land? Would it have to make Swim checks, or deal with reduced speed, or both?

Thanks, sorry to bog you down with so many questions.

You're totally good, Doug, I'm not altering the adventure around the intricacies of people's builds.

For the first question, yes, I agree that you are still aquatic and would not have to make concentration checks.

The second question is more interesting. It doesn't look like this is specifically addressed in the rules by a quick search. Let me do a little more digging and get back to you!

So given that three of us (maybe four, Doug? maybe?) will be at a con next weekend and Andrew is traveling now, I will officially declare that the adventure will begin October 15th. That gives everyone a week to get their characters finished and sort out any rules questions.

Until then, feel free to introduce your character as you sit tight for a six-week journey by ship. Some of the NPCs will introduce themselves, so you can get a sense of your fellow colonists.

Aww… I'm so excited, but I think it's the wise call — this is a longer term commitment and what's another week to wait?

Upside: gives us some good breathing room to RP a bit and flesh out our concepts as well!

Yeah, that's smart. I'm excited too, but we can do introductions and RP on the ship a little.

[spoiler=And his eidolon Hakkuo]

Hakkuo

This furry, serpentine otter has bushy eyebrows and a brush-like mustache.

Deepwater Eidolon 1
M Medium Outsider
Init +3; Senses Perc +0, SM +0,

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Defense
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AC 17, touch 13, flat-footed 14
HP 7
Fort +0, Ref +2, Will +2

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Offense
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Speed 20 ft. Swim 20 ft. Climb 20 ft.
Melee Bite +3 1d6+1 Tail (grab +2) -2 1d6
Space 5 ft.; Reach Tail 10 ft.

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Statistics
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Str 12, Dex 16, Con 13, Int 7, Wis 10, Cha 11
Base Atk +1; CMB +2; CMD 15
Languages Common, Polyglot, Aklo
SQ Gills, Swim

Oops, I messed that post up :(

It's me!

This is gonna be a cool party! Eidolon, funky races. I'm excited to see what everyone's characters are like!

Hey all, sorry to be so behind on all this. Baseball playoffs & some other stuff going on.

Here is my basic character concept from a mechanical standpoint. It's not super optimal but should hopefully do alright. I would really like to figure out how to make vital strike more efficient without resorting to a martial feat, but I'm at an impasse on that.

Let me know if there's a suggestion here, or anything you'd like changed from the GM perspective, Kate. Intro coming today… I promise!!!

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Doug's Character
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Locathah pc druid (goliath druid) 1 (aquatic)
Init +1; Senses Perception +6, low-light vision
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Defense
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AC 17, touch 11, flat-footed 16 (+4 armor, +1 Dex, +2 natural)
hp 11 (1d8+3)
Fort +4, Ref +1, Will +4
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Offense
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Speed 20 ft. (15 ft. in armor), swim 40 ft.
(took alternate racial for more land speed)
Melee club +4 (1d6+4)
Special Attacks destructive smite (+1, 5/day)
Druid Spells Prepared (CL 1st; concentration +3)
1st—enlarge person (self only) (DC 13), shillelagh (DC 13), true strike(D)
0 (at will)—create water, know direction, stabilize
Domain: Destruction (Rage subdomain)
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Statistics
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Str 18, Dex 12, Con 14, Int 8, Wis 14, Cha 7
Base Atk +0; CMB +4; CMD 15
Feats Martial Weapon Proficiency: Greatsword
Skills Acrobatics -2 (-10 to jump), Perception +6, Survival +6 (+8 to avoid becoming lost), Swim +13
Languages Aquan, Common, Common, Druidic
SQ nature bond (Rage domainAPG), primal bond, primal empathy, primal size, primal summons, wild empathy -1
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Special Abilities
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Destructive Smite +1 (5/day) (Su) Make a melee attack with morale bonus to damage.
Primal Bond (Ex) Can affect dinosaur/megafauna animal companion with enlarge person.
Primal Empathy (Ex) Your wild empathy only functions on creatures of size Large or lager.
Primal Size You can spontaneously cast enlarge person using a 1st level or higher spell slot.
Primal Summons Summon nature's ally lists include new options.
Swim (40 feet) You have a swim speed, but only through limited liquids.
Wild Empathy -1 (Ex) Improve the attitude of an animal, as if using Diplomacy.

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Feat / Ability Progression
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Plan is to shillelagh stuff like an Ibb till level 4.
Level 6+ use a 2-handed weapon and power attack; enchant with impact ASAP, hopefully before the character gets vital strike.

Traits — Desperate Focus & Set Mind or Athletic

1- Martial Weapon Proficiency (Greatsword? Earthbreaker?)
3- Power Attack
4- +1 Str; Wild Shape: Megafauna
5- Heavy Armor Proficiency
6- Wild Shape: Scrag
7- Furious Focus or Cornugon Smash
8- +1 strength; Rage
9- Vital Strike
11- Powerful Shape
12- +1 Str; Wild Shape: Giant Form I; Rage Power (?)
13 - Quicken Spell
14- Wild shape: Giant Form II (ocean giant)

^^^ Wow, you're way more planned out than I am. I should probably think ahead a little more...

I kinda stopped planning past level 5 thanks to so many aborted campaigns, that’s impressive!

Also, Doug, you’re definitely not late!

Your own plans above are super detailed too, Andrew — they're what inspired me. Now I just need to nail down the hard part: backstory.

I like marking decisions at each level so I can backtrack if need be, but I used to go a little too far ahead...

I'm trying to leave little wooden fella's backstory and future a little vague, since I'm not really sure how my intended personality and goals will work out in play. It's my personal challenge to actually roleplay the can't benefit from morale bonuses/immune to mind-affecting effects kinda of emotionless aspect of being a construct. Like, he's learned how to mimic some social-emotional stuff and what it means to others, but it's not something he actually experiences. We'll see how that goes!

I guess partly because I've never played a prestige class character, and now that I think about it only a couple multiclass characters, I never plan that far out. It's interesting to think about.

I planned Rowdy out to about 6 or 7, but that's because he's multi-class. Cedar I have no idea beyond 3rd. I'm kind of keeping my options open for Blood of the Coven once that's out too.

I can't wait to meet the counselor of High Seas Summer Camp!

Andrew, do you want us to use Purpose Creche's full name in posts? Or do you have a preferred shortening?

I 100% support characters coming up with nicknames! If you want an abbreviated out of character means of reference that's cool too. Now that I look at it, "PC" is an unintentionally meta abbreviation...

Doug, in answer to a way earlier question, I finally found a Paizo stat block for a creature with a swim speed in medium or heavy armor: Skum sentry. Using that as precedent, armor will reduce your swim speed by the same percentage as it does your land speed. I hope that doesn't mess up your plans!

And just to call attention to it, there's now a link in my profile to the slides for this adventure. Please fill out your Initiative, Sense Motive, and Perception modifiers when you have a chance.

If anyone has anything special affecting those rolls, let me know that too.

Edit: Sorry about that. You should be able to edit the slides now.

Kurvis with the good haircut!

Haha I hope Purpose Creche continues to offer a rational point of view on things. That could lead to some fun interactions.

I expect he will!

I was talking about this with a friend last night, but Purpose Creche's personality and portrayal have been tough to nail down. Like, he straight up can't feel emotions, basic physiological fact - he mooooostly understands them after making a tremendous effort to figure them out, but he can't experience them himself. The best he can do is make careful word choices and mimic body language so that he makes his feelings (or his personal interpretation of what feelings are) known to other people. So while I don't want to be a hyper rational Data type (though there are certainly moments that should come up), I do want some of his non-emotive nature to come through. Something like 70% robot, 30% "normal person."
So far I've been trying to do that by juxtaposing emotive words with his lack of standard emotional signs—no face and whatnot. I also need to nail down a better description of his voice. I imagine it has a little modulation, but it's generally soft and flat.
It's tricky! I want him to be analytical, but without falling into too many tropes or being too much of an android caricature. Neither do I want him to be a disruptive jerk or flat character, though I don't think I've hit that snag so far.
Just a very different way of thinking, and a much different character than I usually play. I'm definitely open to ideas and suggestions!