GM Rednal's Cults of the Sundered Kingdoms (Inactive)

Game Master Rednal

The very important discussion thread.

Hello all.

I'll get Minn sorted out asap so she can start.

Just one last question as I'm not 100% on it: Minn has a high and a mid caster class. With a few exceptions all classes give talents at caster level increases but since you only use the highest of the two that would mean getting more talents for Spiritualist than one normally would. I assume that class will instead follow talent progression as if it wasn't gestalt? So getting talents at the levels a mid caster normally would?

I'll also get to browsing all your backgrounds. Since our characters are supposed to know each other at the start of the game I figure that would be ideal.

I will be doing the same to see how they could be integrated. I will fix up her profile and get things up and running.

GM Rednal, is there anything you wish to see under our names on posts for ease of use for you? Like perception Modifiers, Init, AC Ect?

Yeah, you get additional talents based on the class' growth. ^^ Just like if you were a Magus/Wizard, where you'd get some spells at Magus progression and the rest at Wizard.

@Karlia: See the alias for this profile. XD I answer a lot of common questions there.

Another small thing actually: Is there an alternate favored class bonus for human Soulweavers? The site you linked has none of those.

Hmm... there is, actually!

Human Soulweaver FCB: Gain +1/4 of a new soul you may summon per day for your bound nexus.

I was curious about how the Human Witch Favored Class bonus worked or if there was one for Shifter. I do plan on keeping the current three in skills since I had already proposed it as such.

To my knowledge, there are no FCB's for Sphere Archetypes.

For Human Shifters, though, "Add a +1/2 bonus on Diplomacy and Intimidate checks to change a creature’s attitude."

Minn, you could have stumbled upon the humble home of Karlia and her sisters and they took you in for a time before you got on your feet.

Reporting in. No questions for the minute - I'll polish off my profile when I wake up and eat some food. Maybe even in that order!

...Is it bad that I can easily imagine halflings sleep-eating?

Nope! I can so see that! Opi should do it! That would be so funny!

"Where is all our food?"

I actually do have another question, one I hadn't even considered before: Do the listed combat options (power attack etc) also apply to my phantom?

As stated, the five combat options are available to any character that meets their prerequisites (which includes summoned companions of all kinds).

Gear list for your approval.

I will work on getting the format to Herolab specs. I don't have hero lab so I will borrow the layout from others.

Almost fine. ^^ Note that Vancian items are still Vancian items, and must be crafted as such. (Which means they're harder, per the rules in the wiki. Items are +5 difficulty to craft to begin with, and another five for each prerequisite you don't meet.) I'd like to see the math for that - if you can do it by Taking 10, you're clear. Otherwise, let me know how many things you've got and I'll roll to see if you were successful.

Profiles should be formatted like this (it's pretty straightforward once you start copying and pasting the bold tags). ^^

Oops I also noted I put the wrong thing next to The weapon, since that would have to be bought outright.

Taking 10=19

Campfire Bead

11=5+1+5 for not having produce flame though her Cantrips Feat provides some similar effects for throwing fire and warming.

Sleeves of Many Garments

11=5+1+5 for not having the spell Disguise self but if you look at Blank Form for Alteration it does the same.

Specifically, the DC you're aiming for is 10 + the Caster level of the item, +5 for prerequisites you don't meet. XD So they're DC 16, not 11... which, fortunately, is still within your ability to craft by Taking 10. XD

Ahh, my eye naturally gravitated to the 5+ since it was center of the paragraph.

Now I know. I'll be working on sphere items as we go and gain the money to do so.

Apparently I have more questions in me:

Would you say a Soulweaver qualifies for Versatile Channeler? The feat obviously wasn't written with any 3pp content in mind.

Have you considered taking the Dual Channeler archetype instead? That's the intended method of letting the Soul Weaver channel both kinds of energy, and doesn't run into prerequisite and wording issues.

I will do that I think.

The Bound Nexus ability is the most "evil" ability in the class anyway, using souls as fuel, and that doesn't really fit Minn. The fact that the souls are not destroyed doesn't matter, they're still prohibited from moving on (which is also why she'll only raise mindless undead, no soul involved).

If there's one thing Spheres is good at, it's helping you make the character you want to play. XD

Opi can probably sleep eat. Sadly, I cannot. Yet...

I took the Practised Aim and Unrealized Telekenetic traits. Practised Aim helps with the blowing up of things, and since I couldn't see a healing trait to balance it, Unrealized Telekentic felt suitably Yidhra - gaining the ability to use Telekenetic tricks without actually having any Telekenetic abilities.

Just clarify - since we're using Automatic Progression, we only have 1500gp to spend, right?

No, you have 3000 GP. XD ABP usually demands half, but since Spherecasting is ultimately somewhat weaker than Vancian, I decided to give you a little more money instead.

Hmmm...that gives me a little under 2000gp to spend. Not quite enough to grab a Handy Haversack. Maybe I'll grab a Force Hook, on the theory that you can always be more like Batman.

Minn staying over with Karlia and her sisters sounds like a good idea to me. It would raise one question though: How does Karlia (and her sisters) feel about necromancy? Same actually goes for Opi.

I'm asking because it is bound to come up sooner rather than later as Minn is in no way shy about her abilities in that regard. Eventually I'd for starters aim for her to use an undead steed as a means of transportation.

Beyond that I still have 1 magical talent left to spend and now I can't decide what to do with it. I have the Death sphere with Drain and Lingering Necromancy, the Divination sphere and the Life sphere with Ranged Healing, Restore Soul and Resuscitate.
Now I'm not sure whether to get into another sphere (which would be Enhancement, Protection or Warp) or expand on what I have (most likely Empowered Reanimate or Expanded Necromancy for the death sphere to build up to Permanent Undead at 5th level)

Go for whichever you think fits your character the best - and fits the kind of game you expect to have. XD

I usually run with pragmatic good. So long as you're only using mindless undead or willing souls, and respecting the beliefs of people we give a crap about, I doubt Opi will be unduly bothered. Grossed out, maybe.

I don't think the base Sphere for Enhancement will do much for us, given that we'll be getting magical doodas soon (and Opi already has them) as part of Auto Progression, so I'd likely look at Protection and Warp. Both are fun and useful, although I really like Warp for making a teleporting fighter.

The main use of warp would probably start with moving my phantom around the field of battle. As for protection, I like it but I think I'll end up covering a decent chunk of that sphere purely by use of channel energy, channelling feats and my blessing class feature.
With enhancement I'm mostly looking at giving life to unliving things and things like Bestow Intelligence. Most of all it would be the Ascetic Control ability though as that fits Minn very well.

I find it hard to figure out exactly what kind of game to expect to be honest. I know there will be plenty of plain old adventure but I have no idea about any layers beyond that. As such I'm wondering if there will be room for permanent undead at all.

And yes, Minn will only raise mindless undead though she has no issues with taking control of intelligent undead that already exist. She also won't go around raising all the dead in a town's graveyard or something (even though she actually might if she'd save the town that way). She limits herself to beasts and volunteers, in which case all who attack her are considered volunteers.

Let's just say the title of the game has more information in it than you might realize...

I would, however, suggest being careful about having permanent undead where other people can see them. XD Anyway, let me know when you're finished hashing out your profiles, and we'll get started.

Opi is done, bar smaller items. My sleeping pattern has been thrown out due to work and funfairs (As you may recall, I actually work nights, but today we go to the theme park at 9AM and my son has a St John's Cadet award ceremony later, and thus I gets no sleeps) so it'll take a day or two to finish them, but it's mostly basic adventuring gear like rope, chalk and such combined with food. So long as we're not thrown instantly into a situation where a lack of a steel mirror equates to death...

Hard to argue with the idea that people attacking are volunteers...although the idea of a swarm of zombie deer amuses me for some reason.

I kinda assumed a slight Call of Cthulhu vibe, with the idea of Cults, but I'm reasonably easy.

I can see them being put off in the same way of its just creepy. Why you would want to ride around on a bony body for a mount when horses are perfectly capable of doing the same and in a pinch can be used to help survival.

Well, yeah....

But there would have been long discussions of not doing it in front of the townsfolk just for the simple reason of she doesn't want them coming to burn down the house and them. After all she does have two little sisters to protect. You respect that and you pretty much find yourself as part of the family. After all she has her own secret of how far she would go to protect her family.

She would also point out if you are hiding, letting people know what you can do will draw attention even outside of the small sleepy town.

I'll finish it up tonight. I've been running around busy.

Also the spheres I have are Enhancement, Alteration, Warp, Darkness and Divination (Only the sphere no talents) So i have Enhancement and I was going to use Warp to help move people around also. Having Two that does that isn't a bad thing.

Opi has Life, Destruction and Time as her Spheres, although I plan to branch out into Fate as well to get some uber buffing going.

We're all pretty castery - are any of us good in Melee? Opi is designed for long range blasting.

Also, Rednal - after mooching from some of the things I bought to Help Owen KC Stepehen's pay for his wives medical bills I found a cool item in the Loot 4 Less books. Mind if I grab this?

As a Shifter I can actually do melee and the like. Any Alteration I do on myself only requires a move action and maintaining is a move action.

Now it will take some resource management on my part but totally doable. Since any shapeshifting lasts equal to concentration or if I spend points a little longer.

Next Level the shapeshifting will linger even after I drop concentration a number of rounds equal to 1/2 my level.

With Easy Focus I can even maintain any of my buffs as a move action on you as long as its one at a time.

GM quick question. Would Easy Focus Reduce what action it takes to do my Alterations to myself?

For Ease--

Easy Focus -- When maintaining a sphere ability through concentration, you only need to spend a move action to maintain concentration instead of a standard action. This does not decrease the sphere abilitiy's casting time, only the action used to maintain concentration.

As a shifter to maintain it on myself is already a move action.

Minn can work in melee in a pinch but isn't great there. The question there will be whether Minn or Leandric would be more viable in melee as I would use the Bonded Manifestation ability to buff Minn in melee and that means no manifested phantom.

There also always are any possible undead minions. Assuming we're fighting living opponents Minn could even flit around the battlefield reanimating foes that fell just the round before.

@Opi: The item amuses Yidhra, so yes.

@Karlia: Easy Focus and the Shifter's Quick Transformation do not stack to further reduce concentration time, because anything that lets you reduce the time it takes to maintain an ability is EXTREMELY powerful. However, taking Easy Focus will let you maintain other powers (like buffs) while still attacking or doing other things, so don't underestimate its value. XD It's extremely helpful for buffers.

I didn't think it did but wanted to ask.

I had designed her to be a buffer but with a couple of tweaks I can shift her to a heavy hitter.

My friend got me Hero Lab!!!

Profile Updated and I used Wizard just to build the character since they didn't have the sphere Witch Archetype. I'll add in her hexes and Familiar in a bit

OK, Opi should be done.

And you two? ^^

Just finishing up gear and my phantom. Oh, and decide if I want my human bonus feat or trade it for another racial feature.

If you're not feat starved another +2 is always nice...

Yes, but that also costs me my Skilled trait, which I already traded in for Darkvision and a bonus to some skills when concealed by darkness or dim light.

I am good to go. Her Hexes are Ward and Slumber so pretty easy. Her familiar is the owl so no issues there.

I suppose the best use for the Bonus Feat (other than as a feat) would be the Unstoppable Caster or Awareness ones, given your magic focus. Unstoppable Caster adds +2 to punch through Spell Resistance, and Awareness gives a +1 to all saves and concentration checks.

So, when's the ETA for starting?

Whenever everyone's said they're done making their characters, so I can doublecheck everything. XD I mean, we can't start until you actually HAVE your characters, y'know?

Yes, sorry about being slow. I had an odd couple of days.

Just finishing up gear on Minn now. Ended up using the feat for Extra Magic Talent, always good to have more options.

EDIT: I did grab that Handy Haversack

Don't forget your Phantom. That needs to be in your profile, too. ^^