"maize conference"...
Is there some innuendo I'm missing? Because it is absolutely as boring as it sounds. Although just like every such event, there are some hard core weirdos that stay up until 3 am drinking and partying and somehow are able to sit through 12 hours of lectures and talks starting at 8 am the next day.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I was thinking...WOO! MaizeFest 2015! It's going to be amaizeing! Party all night. Making corn liquor in the tub of the hotel room.... ;)
On a serious note, I will be somewhat out of reach starting in the morning through Sunday, due to travel. Posting may be a little slow.
I just meant that a maize conference sounds like a made up thing. Also, if it is a real thing, then it sounds crazy terrible.
It might be fun if they had a hedgemaize to run around in. :P
Yes, it is a depressingly real thing. Our lab studies corn evolution and domestication and this is a conference for corn researchers and agriculture companies to discuss new genetics in maize. No hedgemaizes though. :(
Army?
My buddy was Army. Airborne. He's legit. PTSD though, pretty sure, which is sad, but I'm here for the guy.
How are we handling Hit Point progression. Roll or use PFS system?
|
"I'm feelin pretty good. Feelin kind of invincible."
Two Three Four things:
1) I'm pretty happy that I knew what the link was before I clicked upon it...but then watched it anyways because as Jack Burton says...
2) I'm excited about hitting level 2...but concerned that it's after only 2.5 fights. Since Wren has done more dwarf teasing than combat, I'm going to assume that's what he's getting the XP for and ratchet that up a notch. Gotta go with the XP that you brought to the dance.
3) While I would usually be fleshing out my alias about now, it still seems to me that Wren needs more time to develop his personality. I have some 'change' built into Wren's character, but it still seems pretty early for that.
4) I look forward to seeing how each of dwarf characters changes and adapts over time as well. Not sure I feel distinct personalities, goals, purposes yet from the dwarfhorde, but, then again, not sure Wren has shown his yet. It's early.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Your grumpy old leatherman class intrigues me.
Regarding character development - I feel like everyone hit the ground running in this campaign, and feel inspired by the effort being put into it. I'll admit I didn't have the clearest concept for Kraygan at first, but I was fine with that. Roleplaying for me is one part alchemy and another part divination. Characters and events are mixed within an environment, each with the potential to act as catalysts to spark change. The random chance provided by dice is a sort of cleromancy, where the degree of success or failure can sometimes influence a catalyst and the future path a character might choose. I often work up a character, consider a path for him or her, then adapt and improvise based on this "alchemy and divination".
As far as personalities, goals, and purpose, I feel like most everyone has basic concepts befitting a normal resident of the town. Is that enough? Probably not for a heroic campaign, but I feel like we've laid good foundations to build upon. Wren apparently has a dark past, but obviously that will be tricky to reveal to the dwarves, whom he just met, and seems annoyed at being saddled with. The OOC insight provided by his internal dialogue is great though, and even if we never learn IC about his motivations, the story is better for it. I like using internal dialogue as well, but Kraygan just isn't very self-reflective.
In Kraygan's case, he is a trained soldier, but untested. He came to Trunau looking for action, but arrived in a time of relative peace and has become a drunk instead, thanks to his cousins and their excellent beer. His mettle has never truly been tested before now and I feel like these events are what will ultimately define him. He's a bit of a cliche, but I'm aware of it, and the one thing I do plan on is breaking that stereotype. How that happens, and when, remains to be seen.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Wednesday is my long day so I might not get Jorgan updated until tonight.
I am fine with leveling up after only a couple fights. I think the XP system is outdated and encourages a certain type of undesirable behavior, eg getting into fights just for the XP and such.
Also, the story sometimes just doesn't call for that many fights or opportunities to gain XP before the next 'act' and I am really not a fan of random encounters, especially just to gain XP so you can be a certain level for the next part of the adventure. Especially over PbP where a fight can take several days or even a week, I'd rather have fewer fights that mean more than stick to a strict XP system.
As for Jorgan's development, I too decided not to write too extensive of a backstory for him and let him develop organically as we played. And while having a tragic or unique backstory can often make for an engaging and interesting character, I don't think it is always necessary. Sometimes having a "bland" ordinary background is fine, as the adventuring itself will put them in unusual circumstances and allow them to develop beyond what they would have. I go back-and-forth between the two methods when I create characters. My first character ever (an elf arcane archer) had no backstory to begin with but after a few games I decided that his low Cha was represented by a debilitating stutter. My mechanical interest in putting ranks into Linguistics to learn as many languages as possible turned him into a scholar and the interest in languages was mainly fueled by his poor ability to speak any of them. It turned out he hailed from Osirion, where his family were prominent politicians but due to his speech condition he was obviously unable to follow this path. Hence, the Pathfinder Society. It took a while but his personality and background slowly developed as I played him.
I think the dwarvenhorde will get there as we play them more but it's still early in the game so to an outsider (and an elf no less!), they will obviously appear very similar and very dwarf-stereotypish.
|
|
"He's a bit cliche, but I'm aware of it, and one thing I do plan on is breaking that stereotype. How that happens, and when, remains to be seen."
There are few words to express how much I look forward to this.
"I think the dwarvenhorde will get there as we play them but it's still early in the game..."
Ayep.
In the meantime, I'll go back to dwarf teasing and grumping: two things that I think Wren excels at.
In North Carolina on vacation. No Internet except on phone. Will try to keep updated but 4g out here seems sporadic. Back on Monday.
-Posted with Wayfinder
Where in SC? We're in Tennessee for spring break.
By the way, I forgot to mention to everyone else: Jorgan and Hops will be getting several Teamwork feats for free so if you feel like joining in the fun, you could take some of our Teamwork feats for maximum effectiveness. Right now we've got Outflank.
Don't you need to have a BAB of +4 to get the outflank feat?
Well, everyone else will. Hunters can take it as one of their bonus feats. I was just saying if anyone else wanted to take our Teamwork feats in the future, it might be useful.
I had to look that up too! Cool that Hunters get the feat at level 2.
Yeah, Hunter is pretty cool. And part of the reason I wanted to play one in an AP was for the fact that other people could take Teamwork feats if they wanted, since (unlike PFS) you're guaranteed to play with someone else that has that feat (me!).
|
|
I'm enjoying the shaman. And I have a warpriest at lvl 1. I really don't know enough about the rest.
But personally, not sure that I want to see any more classes in the game.
Also, get off my lawn!! /me shakesfist at the classters
Wren will consider taking a few teamwork feats that correspond with ranged attacks...if there are any.
I haven't played most of the classes, and the ones I have played were low level, with the exception of the arcanist pregen (which is in dire need of combat spells).
I actually like the arcanist very much. The ability to adjust prepared spells is very useful, and their exploits (especially quick study) are great.
The brawler seems like a fun mix of monk and fighter, and I've thought about dipping into it for Kraygan at some point, but it's probably unlikely to happen. I haven't played one above 2nd level, so I really don't know the full potential or drawbacks of it, but those things don't usually stop me from playing a class anyhow.
I've been eyeing the hunter with interest. I feel like it's a little overpowered at low levels, but perhaps it levels off later.
The low level Shaman had potential, but I think they didn't get the mix of witch and oracle correct.
I like the skald, though I think it's more of a bard archetype then a hybrid bard/barbarian. I think it should have had less spells (sort of like a ranger or paladin progression) and higher HP and Base Attack (like a fighter).
I like the theory of the swashbuckler, but haven't actually played one yet (though my android in Tektite's Iron Gods is swaggering in that direction).
Investigator is my favorite. Kind of weak in combat at low levels but once they get studied combat/strike they can start to hold their own. Plus I just love skill-based characters and Investigator should really be named Skill Monkey: The Class.
I agree about Shaman, the mix isn't quite right. I've never played one specifically because it seems a bit more complicated than I would like. The ability to change spirits or whatever is neat, but it requires being familiar with all of them which is quite a bit of work.
I played a skald up to level 7 during the playtest. I really enjoyed it but I agree that it is more of a bard archetype than its own class. But they already had a bard archetype named 'skald' so that just makes it more confusing.
The ACG classes and the OA classes are two separate issues, imo. The ACG classes seem more like extensive archetypes, then like classes (ala Ninja or Samurai). I'm not sure if they were needed, but they did open up some options for under-utilized types of characters, e.g. Flying Blade makes a throwing dagger build actually viable.
The OA classes actually seem more interesting and unique to me, fluff-wise. I have only played the Kineticist at mid-levels, but it is extremely strong and is apparently getting buffs, which I'm not sure is needed. The Medium (the 50+ spirit class mentioned by EF) looks way complicated, which can be fun, but will be a major headache for GMs when new players draft their characters wrong. (At level 7, you can only take the medium power from the first spirit and then you only get the lesser power from the second if the character stat designation is the same but you get the spirit bonus only if the alignment designation is different and within one step. And this is only at level 7, iirc.)
Either way, since the APG came out with seven classes in 2010, we have seen four classes/alternate classes come out prior to ACG in 2014 (magus, gunslinger, ninja and samurai). Then, the ACG released 10 classes. Now, in 2015, six more classes will be released. There will have been more classes released in the last year (by the time of OA's release) then have been released over the course of the entire history of Pathfinder, barring the original class release in the CRB.
Is this a bad thing? I don't know. As a player, the immense options available to me is very nice. It allows for a very deep level of customization, however it also means that there are innumerable options that can be overwhelming to someone with less system mastery. As a GM, I just don't understand most of the ACG classes, yet. I haven't played any, so it is an entire ruleset that is foreign to me. Since I am supposed to arbitrate over a game with a heavy emphasis on rules, this is challenging.
Just my thoughts.
|
|
Is this a bad thing? I don't know. As a player, the immense options available to me is very nice. It allows for a very deep level of customization, however it also means that there are innumerable options that can be overwhelming to someone with less system mastery. As a GM, I just don't understand most of the ACG classes, yet. I haven't played any, so it is an entire ruleset that is foreign to me. Since I am supposed to arbitrate over a game with a heavy emphasis on rules, this is challenging.
This is the part that kills me for PFS...and how I keep thinking that I had it easy when I was starting out in Pathfinder, GMing, and establishing the Bay Area PFS scene: we had one, maybe two books, and pretty much that was it.
Can you imagine coming as a new GM now?
This is the part that kills me for PFS...and how I keep thinking that I had it easy when I was starting out in Pathfinder, GMing, and establishing the Bay Area PFS scene: we had one, maybe two books, and pretty much that was it.
Can you imagine coming as a new GM now?
That's part of the reason the Core Campaign appeals to me so much. I would always recommend new GMs starting with a low-level Core Campaign game. They might run into newer classes or rules in the newer scenarios, but at least the players won't be throwing anything crazy out there.
|
What greatly appealed to me for Pathfinder was that there was a more open community that you could question and that they already had campaigns / scenarios already premade for you. I am fine with running something that already has the majority of the work done and tweaking it, but I am horrible with creating a whole campaign and just picking random encounters here and there which most RPG's are like.
The Scenarios help me learn quite a bit of the core rules and a few newer classes and I hope that Paizo keeps up with incorporating the newer classes as villains to help learn them.
When I started I just chose Rise of the Runelords for my friends and I and I basically locked it down to Core rulebook only until I felt a bit more comfortable. Looking back at what I know now I realize I was doing a few thing extremely wrong... like swarms hehe. The forums PbP has helped a lot also as it gives me time to look something up before I post or make an on the spot decision.
|
|
I just started looking over the Oracle class. I kind of want to try a Time Oracle with the wrecker curse. Everything he touches and sees ages quickly. A man from the far future that came back in time and is now trapped. His powers are now broken since he is too far out of his time and can now only control very short bursts to reverse wounds and when he gets incredibly angry wipe a creature from existence for a short period.
Sounds fun to roleplay. Just have to find the right setting.
|
|
What I listen to when I update my PFS/PF: Youtube warning
Ooh...Jamiroquai!! Love that song. Are you really taking inspiration from Jamiroquai, though?
I suppose it makes sense...both he and Torgan are one hit wonders.
;)
This is roughly the halfway-ish point of the book. How's it going so far?
For me, lovely. I'm enjoying how things are going.
However, if anyone feels that Wren's personality is too scalding or sarcastic, I'm happy to scale it back. We still have a lot of depth and RP and backstory to reveal...which is great because we also have so much to create.
I think things are going swimmingly. I also have no problems with Wren's personality, rather, I find it humorous and well done
.
Perfectly fine with his attitude... His master's choice in music however...
Have a fun trip!
Regarding the game, I'm having a great time. Excellent job GM!
Wren: I don't like to criticize anyone's approach to their character, unless their idea is disruptive to the game or other players, which I don't think anyone in this group is likely to be. That said, I believe a little tension is a good catalyst for roleplaying, so snark away!
An observation about dwarf/elf relations: it seems like a common theme for elves and dwarves to have personality conflicts with one another. I think the dwarves of our group are fairly neutral in regard to Wren (even Kraygan, despite recent evidence, which is more an after effect of his first barbarian rage). I'm not sure if Wren holds a racial bias, but it is hard to tell because there are no other races in the group to interact with and those outside the group seem to have been treated similarly.
Regarding Music: at one point my RL tabletop group assigned "theme songs" for their characters. A few of my PFS characters have unofficial songs I think of when writing for them.
For example:
Aod the Witchchild - Flo Rida's "Good Feeling" and KONGOS "Come with me now".
Maximo Interresante - Armik "Tango Flemenco" and the Wonderpets "Theme Song" (aka "Oppara the Golden City")
Ruckus - Tenacious D "Wonderboy"
I haven't yet settled on any for Kraygan. I'm considering Mighty Mighty Bosstones "Another Drinking Song" but it seems a little too obvious. Considering Iron Maiden or Metallica.
Anyway, I think it can be pretty amusing, and sometimes informative of an aspect of someone's character that might not otherwise be apparent.
Is Aod still alive? ;-)