Go Forth and Conquer (Inactive)

Game Master Arythain

The first thing we'll use the discussion thread for is actually building out your characters. While that's going on, we'll have a roll-free RP stretch while you speak to the Dragon and/or her advisors on how to go about your conquest of Gelkrosh.

Hello! Checking in.

We had talked about the barbarian- deal; I'd still like to incorporate Rage and Jotungrip for my character. Without the barbarian class, that's not quite possible. Any thoughts?

I'll be honest, I'm really tired of Rage characters. I know why they're popular, but it seems like they're omnipresent. That being, said, I don't want my curmudgeonly-ness to get in the way of your character concept, so maybe I'll try to remove the stick from my ass.

Are you going for straight-up Titan Mauler?

Two- level dip in Titan Mauler, with the rest in Fighter. The basic premise behind him being that he's so strong, and skilled, he's able to fight with two larger weapons. The strength, and the weapons, from the lands before; while his service in the Dragon's armies allowed him to learn to use the two weapons together. It's certainly not the most optimal build, but I think it would be fun to see a warrior with a greataxe and an elephant knife together.

That being said, if you don't like it, I'll change him up to something different.

I'm a big fan of flavorful, non-optimized builds. Go ahead and build him out the way you've described.

Also, I think I've decide to finalize build rules as 20 point-buy for you, 15 point-buy for the rest of the party, so go ahead and use that.

And finally, a little later today I'll start up the Gameplay thread and we can start playing around with RP'ing your meeting with the Dragon, which will include a strategy session where you'll get some info. This will be role-play only, there's no rolls to be made so nothing needs to be finalized about your character yet.

Awesome! I'll be looking forward to it!

Post is up, though later than I'd hoped. Over the next few days I'll be putting up a lot of info and such into the dropbox folder that should now be linked at the top of the campaign. You don't need to read it all at once, but you might want to skim it and come up with info you'd LIKE to know, so I can prepare it and get it up before we get going in earnest. :)

Oh, and just some trivia: Dragons in Eldreon are not color-coded for your convenience. Their scales can and do have various coloration, but usually that coloration gives you no clues as to their alignment or other details. That being said, The Dragon Queen's scales are blue-tinted and as I re-read the blue-dragon page just now I seem to have made her personality somewhat like your stereotypical blue dragon. :\ Except, more Lawful Neutral type than Lawful Evil.

Don't you hate it when you try to be original and wind up adding to the sterotypcial? I feel your pain, but I'll keep in mind any dragon can have whatever color scales.

I did have one question, already- on the Gelkrosh Territory Map, there are various circles that seem to be overlayed with the location of the towns/cities on the Map of Gelkrosh. What are the distinctive representations of the different colored circles? Is that various allegiances, or something else? I couldn't puzzle that out.

Ah, yes - those are a part of the tweaks I'm making to the Kingdom building rules. They will represent the political/military control borders of the various factions. I'm going to get a document up that lists all the changes - I'm trying to keep them as minimal as possible, but because this is supposed to be as much a military strategy type campaign as anything else, I had to make at least a few adjustments. Futhermore, I'd like your feedback on anything that seems... well, dumb.

I had forgotten to mention: When you come to the gear part of building your character, please let me know what you'll planning. Overall Eldreon is a lot less wealth-and-loot focused and even mid-level characters aren't necessarily rich.

Let's say you'll have, say, 20 gold pieces = 2000 silver pieces to spend. For now, just take the pathfinder gp price and translate that to silver pieces.

Some players might start to think "wow I'm not gonna have anything, I'll be so weak" but remember, the whole world is like this, so nobody else has anything either. Finding magic items is a rare and notable thing.

An exception are alchemical products like healing potions and alchemical fire. Those are available.

Is it the same as wealth- by- level, just silver based instead of gold based? So, 16,000 sp? Couldn't remember, sorry!

Very much not the same as wealth by level. :)

You'll have 2000 sp, the others something like 1500 - unless there is reason to change the totals for a person (comes from nobility or such). Wealth is not so easy-come, easy-go in my games.

Alright, Surtur's finished, for all intents and purposes. Still debating over feats (7 feats I want, and only 6 slots, sadly), but I'm pretty certain this is what I'm going with, and if I do swap something out I'll let you know.

Roger, will look over the build soon. As I said in the recent gameplay post, here's where we load you up with information and strategy musings. We're not going to roleplay the entire thing as that would take forever. I'll continue to cook up info docs both according to my own priority and in answer to your questions. First up will be a document on the factions and what you know about them.

I've added a document called "Gelkrosh Factions" to the folder. It's fairly long, but it should have the general kind of info on the various people and groups within the region that the Dragon's agents were able to discover. There's more info, but I'll put up more specific folders/documents as you require them.

As you peruse that document (whether it be soon or over awhile, there's no rush yet) let me know if there is more info you think would/should be available in that document and I'll decide if you're correct. :)

Still going through and making my notes with the document, but I'll get something up tonight, promise!

There's no hurry! There's going to be a lot of information coming. Once you have a party to rely on, maybe you can have one or two of the willing members become subject experts or something - delegate away some spheres so you don't have to master it all. :)

Anyway, again - no hurry. I still have several info documents to write up over the next several days. Today I'm trying to finish the Kingdom Building Rules tweaks one, so you know what to expect on that score (even though the Kingdom Building part doesn't necessarily start right at the beginning).

New folks, welcome! I'm going to have some short directions/tweaks for your concepts (mostly on how exactly you got picked for this shindig) up later tonight. In the meantime, say hi, maybe discuss your characters in more detail. See above for the beginning of how to go about building, and please let me know what classes you're thinking.

Oh Boy, You did make it tense, didn't ya?
AHH, glad to be on board with this.
It's late here already, so ...
Hi everyone.
This is your all-new-and-turned-good Ogre and his emergency ration at your disposal (as long as Merry is fine with it).

Hello! Thanks for the nomination and welcome. It feels great so far : )

Boing!

Since I'm reusing a name (and a bit of the rest of the character*) I've already got an alias up and running. Cleared up most of the irrelevant stuff on a quick pass through. We'll see how much of what's left is useful, but hopefully a bit. Oh and I pasted the lore in there too. The little that is ...

Anyhow. I was thinking of picking the Occultist class. Specifically the Psychodermist archetype. It has that delicious monster hunter flavor where you use trophies of your hunts as implements (class foci). And you even get to steal some ranger tricks a bit down the line!

But before I get too far - just to check - the flavor of the archetype can also be quite icky. If someone doesn't feel comfortable playing along with someone that is (probably) going to drag bits of other creatures along please do speak up. While I like this one there's plenty of other classes in pathfinder and I'd rather pick something slightly less gory then alienate someone!

Now that that is taken care of I have some questions!

1) @GM - Could you put a brief summary of what we shall use to build our characters in the campaign info or something?

I *think* we are level 5, 15 point buy with 1500 "Standard gold" to build our characters with. But I'm not sure and I can't find everything in one place.

2) @GM - Still okay with the occultist as a class pick?

I know you were on the fence about psychics in general, so I thought I'd just double check : )

*v1.0 of Jhaelwyn was for one of those evil+monster campaign. We're going for a toned down version now. Unless someone *really* want to start gluing things that shouldn't be together!

Hello! I'll read over things as soon as I mow the lawn. :D The first thing I'm going to have to decide is if I'm going sorcerer or oracle... :D

Thanks for the invitation, GM Mercy!

I'm your friendly local Hobgolin Lore Shaman, Histrok checking in. I'm strongly considering the Speaker for the Past archetype as it should fit my characters story well (though it eats into my versatility somewhat.)

I'm here for divination, and some diplomacy purposes, but I should be able to contribute a combat spell or two here of there as needed.

I'll start to put the character together this evening if I've got a chance. Like Jhaelwyn, a 15 point build, level 5, 1500 SP wealth start is what I've gathered based on what I've read.

I'm looking forward to working with you all!

Hello everybody.

Cuneo Danetha will have his own alias shortly, with which I will post here. I've only got a half hour to work on things now, but I should be able to set up a little bit.

Cuneo is a human whose background includes archery, use of the sword, herbalism, skirmishing in forests, adventuring in forests, and being a sailor. I was thinking ranger for class. It looks like we've got enough primary melee people, so maybe I'll try to focus on archery a bit more combat wise. I'm pretty flexible, class wise, as long as I can include all of the above things from my backstory mechanically.

I have no problem with icky stuff Jhaelwyn, so long as it's well implemented and makes sense to you for your character to be doing.

Anyway, time to get to work.

I'm debating currently between going sorcerer and oracle with the dragon mystery and the covetous curse. I like the oracle thematically, but I feel like the sorcerer may fit the party's needs better and require less of my very limited resources (covetous curse would involve spending 1/3 of my starting cash on fancy clothes, not to mention the extra weight on a race with -4 strength).

Sigh. We'll be a little slower starting off if the forums stay this squirrely, but we'll get there!

Mm. I logged on this morning excited to check in and was greeted by the paizo goblin :/

I'll have some moments later this evening to actually do some work, I'll be back then :)

They were down from around 10-1 last night as I was trying to post this originally. Fortunately I'd had a post eaten earlier that day and decided to write/save it in a text editor first anyway.

Some musings - I was originally thinking of being a melee character. But 15 pb, being an elf and us having quite the frontline already means it might be better to go with some more reach.

[edit]Eh I think I'll take my advice and just go the str route! Who needs secondary mental stats really?[/edit]

Maybe ranged weapons? But they cost so many feats ...

Reach weapons? The Elven Branched Spear is really fancy. Maybe that one. And it is finessable!

Can't go too low on Strength though, I love gear and not being encumbered. And now we can't rely on stuff like extra-dimensional spaces or Muleback Cords (though I suppose those fit in the budget - not much else though!).

Hmh. And on the topic of budget, I do love me some poisons. But juuust a handful seeing how money is even more precious!

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@Sorcerer/Oracle - I'd pick the one you like the most! (Yey helpful right :P?)

I *think* we can manage without a pure arcane caster. Sorcerers would surely be quite powerful when their enemies can't afford Cloak of Resistances but we can manage. And you wouldn't feel the pain of not being able to afford a Sword of Butt-Kicking +2!

Jhaelwyn can grab some of the arcane tricks like invisibility or fly via implement abilities, though a bit slower then expected. If there's anything specific you are worried we would miss?

On the other hand we have Divine (and Divination!) somewhat covered by our hobgoblin friend. Shamans are quite versatile and they might be able to cover our needs.

I'm not sure how similar the spell lists actually are though. And I don't ever really think someone has complained about having too much divine magic!

Plus since the odds are looking like we won't really ever be amassing enough wealth to go to McMagicMart there's really no harm in buying fancy stuff is there?^^

(We might want to get a pack animal or two? Or mounts!)

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Just because I like seeing our party composition in one place:

Rage-Fighter
Paladin
Ranger-y
Occultist
Lore Shaman
Sorcerer and/or Oracle

I'll probably go oracle. Sorcerer would probably be more 'optimized' in terms of party balance, but I love the flavor of a kobold dragon oracle with the covetous curse. :D I'll just have to deal with the difficulties it brings...

Drekisal would very much be in favor of a pack animal given that he's likely to end up with a strength of 6.

For poisons and such, we'll be using the Unchained Poison and Disease tracks shown here. I have to look at my notes, but I think I also decided to bump up listed poison and DCs by like +2 or something. They' a bit more of a threat in Eldreon than you might be used to (as, I should say, are most things).

And having some versatility in the party is good, but don't feel like you need to cover everything. You'll have opportunities where being combat monsters will be a great benefit, as well as times when if only one person is capable of a certain thing it doesn't help much. Go with what feels right for your character idea before anything else, and let the rest fall where it may.

So I'm playing around with the build and have decided to go Speaker for the Past. I'll be giving up my wandering spirit and wandering hex (and thus losing some versatility,) for some revelations which should fit my character's background fairly well.

I will still have access to 2 wizard/sorcerer spells of my choice up to 3rd level (for now.) So if there's anything on those lists that we feel we can't live without and don't have access to elsewhere I'm happy to take suggestions.

@GM Mercy, what's the plan for traits? Two (and a weakness for a third,) or something less than that? It feels like you probably talked about it somewhere else, but having it here would help!

That's nice. Well until someone tries to poison us that is!

I think I shall grab some does of Blue Whinnis extract myself. It's really handy because it doesn't actually kill people - so no long string of nat 1s leading to PC death! (Well not from this exact source at least...)

Hmm, also while I'm filtering through ideas, how available are magic crafting feats/hexes? It sounds like there's not much easily accessible magic as far as items go. Does that mean no crafting feats at all, just consumables (scribe scroll, brew potion,) or something else? I'd likely take craft Wondrous Item via the Fetish Hex if I could, but I'm guessing that wouldn't fit the setting.

What languages are most common in the area?

Ah, great question Drekisal. So, there's no 'Common' language in Eldreon. I like linguistics too much to do that.

However, because this adventure is very regionally focused, there are two languages you can basically use as a combined common. Everyone you're likely to interact with is almost certain to speak at least one of the two. We'll call them:

Gelkish(Tribal)
Gelkish(Settler)

These are argot languages, native to practically nobody but shared by many. You'll want to choose ONE of them as a stand-in for common.

After that, we'll treat other languages as the region-appropriate branch of a great language tree. So you can take Hobgoblin (very prominent), Human (very prominent), Draconic (prominent among people from The Dragon's lands), Giant (etc). You can imagine most of the connections. None of these are universal languages, but most of the species of THIS area speak a unified language, so we'll treat them as universal.

So to sum up, after the two replacement common languages, the most common are:
Human
Hobgoblin
Draconic
Giant
and then probably Dwarven, due to Hafton's influence. After that, it's very fractured.

Surtur: I'm prepared the anwers to your Gameplay thread questions. They'll be up tomorrow (provided the forums behave)

Surtur: I'm prepared the anwers to your Gameplay thread questions. They'll be up tomorrow (provided the forums behave)

YES! Definetly looking forward to those answers, as that'll shape my strategy for where we start.

Just a thought to consider guys- The Gelkrosh Region is a pretty big place, and we'll be traveling a lot. I can also imagine several scenarios where getting somewhere quickly might be of some use; so, if you all think you have the funds, I propose we all buy a horse. It'll help us move around, plus be that useful pack animal I've heard a couple of you guys mention.

Well, I was planning on buying a yak as they're apparently prevalent and I associate them with Hobgoblin war mounts (not that Histrok would be using it in battle,) but I think horses are faster, so I could do that instead. Unless Gork's mount is slower, in which case I wouldn't be holding us back and the yak would appeal more.

@GM Mercy, sorry, two more questions as I'm building. You said you didn't care for psychic characters, but what about spells like Detect Thoughts or Share Memory? They'd fit with what I've got in mind, but I'll avoid them if they wouldn't be something that we'd find in Eldreon. That and what are we doing for rolling for HP?

Boy that's really low budget now that I have a look into it.
Can't start with full plate .... just because I am well grown!
What a shame ^^

@Mounts: Ham (my Ox) is at 40ft, so slower than a horse but faster than on foot.

Question(s):
- Do we play out the meetup of our characters? (sounds fun but may take a while)
- NPC Ogres have a listed speed of 40ft (which makes sense since they are big humanoids I guess?) but the Ogre player race doesn't list anything along those lines, which may be an oversight?
- Any alternate rules like background skills or something?

Some info about Gorks crunch?
- He's stupid strong for a 15pt game (20)
- He's stupid. Like really. Stupid (6)
- But quite charming - which is stunning for most if they hear him talk friendly for the first time (CHA 14)
[wouldn't it be hilarious if Gork would become the leading diplomat of our kingdom?^^]
- He can ride fairly well on Ham and is quite capable in mounted combat and has learned to talk to people in a soothing manner (quite a bit of diplomacy) but is otherwise completely uneducated
- With his Toothpick (lance) he has a reach of 15ft and hits (bad) people with his Faith-Changer (greatsword) for 3d6+13 (with PA)

@Mounts - As you might recall from the recruitment thread I'm all for Yaking it up!

They are only 40' speed but they have some other perks.

Notably they only cost 24 money and uses the Bisons stats. The Bison costs 50 or 75 combat trained. We might want to use this price instead to be fair (or not).

They have a massive strength of 27(!) so should be able to haul lots of gear.

Instead of the wimpy hoof attacks of a horse they Gore for 2d6+12 damage, hitting on +10. Oh and they got Power Attack for a bit extra and Trample for crowds!

Plenty of hp, top tier fort save and really poor will ...

You know this might not be such a good idea after all. It feels like our BisonYaks would crush all opponents - until someone comes along with Charm Animal or something. Then they'll crush us ...

Maybe we should look to use the stats of the Aurochs instead. They are much more on the level of a horse (stronger, a bit slower). And if we call them a Yak we don't have to pay the outrageous price of 300gp! :P

Thoughts?

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@Gork's Crunch - Just a few notes!

Reach weapons is typically just double natural reach, so lancing would be from 20' away! (And 15' as well, since his natural is 5-10.)

The race builder races are usually quite nerfed and doesn't include half of what the real critters have. In my experience what's there or not doesn't follow any rhyme or reason at all.

(For example the race builder drider is faster then the real thing but can't web ... Nor see in the darkness properly!)

A yeah, your right. Even better :-)
Anyone able to cast enlarge person?
A 6m high Gork sounds like a fun thing to behold ^^

@Mounts: I don't think the domesticated version of Yak/whatnot would have the same stats as their wild parts?
It would be crazy to run around with a herd of CR4 animals ...
Maybe just take the stats for a lvl1 AC that are noted below the respective entries instead?

@Mounts - The suggested use of the Bison is under the pack animal version of the Yak. But yes it's quite silly. In fact most of the buy-able animals are silly.

(For example, going by wealth-by-level, we could all afford to be riding a Tyrannosaurus Rex. That seems healthy for encounter balance!)

Bison/Yak companions aren't Large until level 7, so that's a bummer.

Maybe it would be easiest if we pester our GM to slightly modify the horse stat block into a Yak?

@GM - consider yourself pestered :P

@Enlarge Person - It's on Jhaelwyn's spell list at least. Would probably need a Wand though. Or maybe just a scroll or two for special occasions : )?

Okay, I made an alias and put in my information. I did some revision of my backstory, but mostly I just changed wording around to make it read better. The ending is a bit different, let me know if I incorporated your note adequately or if you want more detail/more changes/something else.

Mounts sounds like a good idea. I don't really have time to look into the mechanical side of things right now, I guess that will have to wait until tomorrow.

Crunch thoughts...
I am torn with my feats.
Mounted combat and ride-by-attack are set.
Power Attack seems like an obvious choice.
But I could go with spirited charge instead of PA for crazy mounted charge attacks.
PA is more versatile, but Spirited Charge is a hefty power surge for my major shtick - and let's face it:
If you get hit by a huge lance wielded by a 3m-Ogre, propelled by an armoured aurochs - you are in trouble indeed...
... like 6d6+21 kind of trouble.

Still, I would lack anything for unmounted combat that way, mhhhh.

@Feats - Mm I feel your pain. PA is so handy to have ...

But on the other hand, I'm sure getting smacked by an ogre hurts even if he isn't power attacking. And there's always Smite!

We could always pester the GM even more and see what he thinks about those feat-tax modifications that are floating around on the internet : )

I believe Drekisal is ready! Since we're favoring being mounted, Drekisal got a riding dog, which is probably more dangerous in combat than he is were it not for his spells. He'll probably be riding his mount as much as possible, given that he's encumbered by his armor and weapons alone. So let's see, why don't I do this:

Strengths
Oracle spells, good for support with a bit of damage potential
Two different breath weapons (one from kobold feats, one from oracle revelations)
Speaks eight languages
7 trained skills--high Diplomacy, Bluff, Linguistics, and Use Magic Device, decent Spellcraft, Fly, and Sense Motive
Resistant to acid and fire

Weaknesses
Mediocre hit points, AC, and saves
Terrible offense without using spells
Encumbered by pretty much anything
Has to wear fancy clothes or feel sick

So pretty much, he's quite useful as long as he doesn't die horribly, which is likely if he gets anywhere near combat. This may be a problem. XD

We could always pester the GM even more and see what he thinks about those feat-tax modifications that are floating around on the internet : )

Funny that you mentioned that.

@Drekisal: Sounds like a real kobold then. I like the two breath weapons ^^. So you have diplomacy as well? Imagine your frail kobold and Gork arrive to a parlay at a fancy dress-up kings room. Now that's an awesome though isn't it?

@Money: Boy, even weapons cost double if you're big o.O
I'll be bankrupt from getting two mundane weapons and not-the-best armour plus cheap armour for Ham.

@Dying in melee - There should be plenty of people to hid behind though : )

And Jhaelwyn will have points in Heal so you are not completely screwed if you go into negative. Come to think of it, there's also a paladin with lay on hands. Assuming he simply doesn't accidental squish the kobold that is ... :P

If it becomes a big or reoccurring problem I'm sure we can arrange some better protection scheme.

@Feat taxes - Yeah, those where the ones I thought about.

Main thing I like is that Power Attack and Deadly Aim is available for everyone. Then everyone can be at least passable in melee and ranged combat! Well everyone with 13+ in Str and Dex.

It does take the shine away a bit from fighters though, worth asking how our great and glorious leader feels about that one. (Maybe just happy as everyone else when they get a few extra toys to play with? :P)

@Large price tag - Hmh. It is starting to make sense why all the poor giants use furs and greatclubs then!

Might be worth to check out one of those get-a-free-weapon traits? (But they might have all been *uh* readjusted a bit - I don't recall ...)

@Parley - I'm imagining you two hosting a tea party for some diplomat. Now that would be a sight to see!

Oh and I have figured out which Illusion spell to grab! Shadow Weapon!

It's really cool but usually vastly outclassed. But in this game having a free +1 weapon might come in really handy.

Especially since she can then use her Legacy Weapon Implement Power to grab something fancy. I like Bane. Or Spell Storing + Pernicious Poison + a poison. Really fancy if you have time to prepare.

Yeah the attack options are awesome, but actually I like two other aspects even more, namely merged & condensed combat manoeuvre feats and wide-spread use of weapon groups for feats like weapon focus.
The former really make CMs much more approachable since you do no longer have to spend ALL of your feats on them to be okay (in ONE of them) but you get a decent package of CMs covered by spending one early and one late-game feat - which is a huge improvement to vanilla.
The latter really helps to counter the pesky locked-in syndrome pathfinder characters suffer from - being good with one weapon and crap with every other doesn't make me feel like a capable fighter. Sure, if I train long time with axes, I will not be very good with bows or even swords. But I should do okay with other kinds of axes as well, right?

@traits: Hmm yeah, that might be an idea. Will look into it. Even one weapon would help to allow me pick up basic gear alongside my must-haves ^^

@Shadow Weapon: Well, the save is a bit annoying (I'd hate it to crit and then have the target be like 'Nope, I don't think so.') but otherwise this sounds like a nice spell for this campaign - nice find!

EDIT:
FunFact: Ham is about as intelligent as Gork. Likely that nobody knows since Ham cannot speak, but its true nevertheless (both have Int 6).