I know I'm very late with this but I've been going through the other characters again, mostly out of curiosity, and came across some weird stuff.
Andrea seems to be missing 1 point from her PB whereas Alexander is sporting a 30 point pb instead of 25.
Did you take into account that Alexander rolled for his variant ability and got a +2 charisma score for it?
I thought it came out ok with my math when I factored that in.
I'm currently leaning towards Aasimar for my Bard (with the Scion of Humanity racial trait). So I'm going to roll his Variant Ability and see how this goes.
Variant Ability
1d100 ⇒ 90Edit: Alright. That will work out fine. Stats along in a second.
Ah, I did not. Just means he's a lucky then
Andrea still misses the 1 though
The point is on the top of my head, I'll put it in CON
Very lucky. But +2 additional Charisma seemed worth the loss of 1/day Glitterdust. (Not that Glitterdust was an easy thing to give up.)
Hmm, don't seem to be able to edit the loot table with the taking of the studded leather and the 20 arrows.
Marking it down. The MW one, right?
Yes, the MW
As for the armour and armaments. Radomir is keeping watch so I'd say it's logical he wears armour and is armed.
In case of Thaliar, he sleeps in his armour which is just fine as it's light. He keeps his spear by his side so he only has to grab it.
Radomir, Thaliar has a spare studded leather armour which you can have. Just bring it up in character at some point. Perhaps something about how you'd feel safer if you had some protection while sleeping when your watch ends or something.
Radomir: There are a couple of restrictions on charging. It's a full round action. You can move up to double your speed. You must move at least 10 feet and you must have a clear path with no obstacles or difficult terrain.
You get a +2 to your attack but a -2 to your AC.
Basically, unless you withdraw one turn and charge in again the next (if it doesn't chase you) then you can charge something twice.
There's a lot of controversy over horses, charging, and lances. There's some table variance. Mainly because the game isn't too clear on *who* is doing the charging in that case. But as long as the group is consistent, I think it should be okay. The best way I've seen to deal with it is that you and your mount can charge. You end your charge when you hit with your lance. This means that your mount won't get to attack that first round since you'll be 10 feet away and the horse only has a five foot reach. But when the thing steps up to you, you can have the horse attack, then five foot step back for you to attack. But that's up to the GM. She might have a different way of running it.
I think we are really punching above our weight class here.
CR 4 against 6 level 1 characters? Meh, it's doable. It's a matter of being very careful and not screwing around wasting actions. The only real issue is if it gets a full attack on any single character. Just don't let it do that and we should be fine.
The other issue we have is that one of Eduard's spells is best used on Radomir when he's not mounted. Unfortunately his first instinct is going to be to mount in any fight we're in. But at this level, Enlarge Person is far more useful than his mount. And that spell is much less useful on anyone else. Also, Eduard's other spell is not useful in this specific fight.
Finally, keep in mind that we fought the bandits a full day ago. We attacked them late in the evening, waited overnight, hung them the following day, and are now on our way back to Oleg's. It's been over 24 hours since we attacked the bandit camp. Our characters are very tired, but we're not *that* low on resources.
i can have Radomir bounce off the mount, he's kinda wiffing here anyways.
Oh, I should also point out that I fully agree this is above our weight class. But we can still win the title in this one. It's not like trying for a Sumo belt. :)
I think you're fine on it at the moment. I'd just suggest full attacking with the mount, then have it five foot step back, then attack with a reach weapon. Since the Owlbear is in Grease it can't 5-foot step and full attack you. It can only move forward and attack (if it makes an acrobatics check). If it hits and you don't drop, *then* I'd suggest withdrawing, getting some healing and maybe dismounting (maybe if Eduard mentions this might be helpful?).
A bite and two hoof attacks can get pretty brutal, pretty fast at this level. And if it does fall down, you can Thaliar should be able to grab some AoOs on it when it stands, doubling your attacks. Even if it doesn't, as long as it's not taking it's full attack this should be survivable. The main concern is that we have a bunch of ranged people shooting into melee. And a -4 for prone and -4 for melee is a bad situation. Though readying for when it stands is a good plan in that case. Still, it's better than letting it charge someone and blow them up.
Thaliar will be moving in next, as soon as I make my combat post. It's a shame I did not have the chance to prepare new extracts as I'd have prepared either Long Arm or Enlarge Person instead of Bled, giving me some more control or punch.
I do need to find a way to threaten the area directly around me as well. Sadly I'm not proficient with armor spikes.
A spiked gauntlet will take care of that.
I highly recommend that ranged attacker's ready to attack when it attempts to stand up. -8 to hit is...rough. But, on the plus side, some AoO's coming right up.
On a separate note, are we playing Warhammer? Because that's the only game I know of where horses, against all odds, do more damage than their knights! (Or anyone else in the party, for that matter.)
The servants and tools of not!Zon-Kuthon are just more potent than there lesser compatriots.
Remember that your horse doesn't have reach. :)
But! They *can* ready an action to attack if the Owlbear does manage to move towards you. You can even then 5-foot step back after the attack. Though the horse would not get a full attack as you can't full attack as part of a ready action.
Also, you can attack, have your horse 5-foot step forward, and it would then get it's full attack. (Which I think is what you've described.) Just make sure you're noting where you are at the end of your actions. In this case, it's in contact with the Owlbear. (Who can either stand, take some AoOs and try to bite, or stay on the ground and attack with a -4.)
At level 1 a horse doing more damage than a character isn't that strange to be honest. Most of us should be outpacing him soon. For Thaliar soon won't come before 4th lvl though.
I wonder, would an AoO provoked by standing up be considered provoked by movement? I mean, standing up is a movement but is it also a movement in game terms?
EDIT: I should claim slow damage progression more often if it gets me crits
Radomir attacked then moved forward with horse for the horse to attack. No reach was necessary. Human attack 5' step horse attack. Next round, horse attack, 5' step back, human attack repeat. Hes vulnerable right now if the owlbear can stand upright, by the still gets an AoO from the horse (sigh)
No worries. Just making sure everyone knew what was going on. I'm guessing this thing is going down between you and Thaliar anyway. That and if it's not dead yet, it will be after AoOs from your horse and Thaliar.
Just get a horde of cats and we'll conquer the River Kingdoms!
It can be a Catocalypse !!
Well, that third round really turned things around. Fun times. I'll have to handle leveling up in the morning. Level 2 bard, here I come! (Along with *crazy* diplomacy and sense motive!)
Yay! We are now immune to cats!
+1 CON=3
+1 Bab
+1 Fort/Will
+1 Orison and 1st level spell
+1 all skills
Taking average HP
+6 HP (4.5 rounded down +2)
+1 all skills
+1 BAB
+1 Ref and Will
+ Monkey Fish extract in formulae book
+1 extract/day
+Poison Lore & Poison Resistance +2
+1/3 inspiration FCB (total 2/3)
Anyone have any out-of-the-box ideas for Bard spells? I have my standard, but I figured someone might have a cool idea!
Also, I'll pick knowledges after I see what Eduard is going with (if he branches out at all, though I suspect he will not).
As far as branching out goes, Thaliar will be branching out. I'll actually be doing that now already and move my rank from Know: Local to Know: Religion. While I know Andrea also has that covered it makes the most sense for Thaliar at the moment based on his suspicion that something fishy is going on with Andrea.
As for Bard spells. For level 0 Daze, Lullaby and Unwitting Ally all have their uses. Lullaby could be fun if coordinated with Eduard's Sleep, Unwitting Ally is can help with flanking and Daze is quite nice still at our current level though it'll get useless in a few more.
The absolute best lvl 1 Bard spell would be Saving Finale. Silent Image is also always good if you're creative with it. Ear Piercing Scream is quite nice. Feather Fall has it's uses though it's a niche spell. Unprepared Combatant is also quite nice.
As far as out of the box goes, Horn of Pursuit could useful in an outdoor campaign like this. Memory Lapse on the other hand could help dissolve a social situation gone wrong.
Well, the absolute best level 1 bard spell is Grease, but yes Saving Finale is also quite good. Though I generally consider it a swap-out spell, like Feather Fall. Silent Image is my go-to second level spell with Saving Finale following after that. Or Ear Piercing Scream with Saving Finale swapping out Cure Light Wounds later on when we've got some CLW wands in the party. Horn of Pursuit is definitely a wand spell. One wand of it should last us the entire AP. If we can find a partly charged cheap one, that'd be even better.
For Knowledges we're still missing Planes and Engineering. Alexander will definitely be picking up Engineering. I'll think on the other one for a bit.
Mathematics falls under Know: Engineering most of the time, doesn't it? If so it's probably next on Thaliar's list.
As for Grease, how good it is really depends on your party composition as it can hinder as much as it can help.
I think so? With respect to Mathematics. It won't be a bad plan to have double on every knowledge skill, so no worries there.
As for Grease, stopping things from being able to 5-foot step or charge, regardless of whether they fall down or not, is worth a spell alone. The fact that it can also knock things down is awesome. It also helps keep people out of grapples, which is death for tons of characters. I've never been in a group that couldn't use this spell, but I bow to your superior experience in this matter. ;)
I know it's a great spell and I'm not denying that. What I say comes from the time a stupid wizard ended up getting both the fighter and the druid killed in a game I played due to bad Grease placement. Two Orcs with two handed weapons are bad news, worse if they make the save vs Grease and the one party member hit (the Fighter) doesn't.
Beyond that I have had cases where our own Grease spell ended up forcing us to retreat as we had issues reaching some archers on the other side. Basically the spell is too effective sometimes.
That's fair. Also, Saving Finale *is* really good, so it's a tough comparison. But on Saving Finale's side it's good for 20+ levels. Grease can be, but once things start flying it's much more situational. Still sometimes really useful. Making Gargantuan creatures have to move through dangerous terrain because they're standing on a spot of grease is hysterical.
Poor use of area control spells are always going to be bad though. Luckily for me, the spell is dismissible when I make a really bad choice! :)
Oh, for hp isn't "average" for a d8 5? Greater or equal to.5 round up. Unless we're doing half the die?
Normally I don't post from my phone, but today has been an exception. And oh my god how do people do this all the time? Editing posts is a nightmare!
I figured for averaging the d8 we'd take 4 hp on even levels and 5 hp on odd levels so it more or less averages out at 4.5 per level.
Fair enough. I guess I'll wait for the GMs call on that one and see.
Posting with my iPhone isn't so bad. I'm probably just used to it though. I'm almost never home to post from my laptop. The biggest hurdle is not being able to edit maps when gm's use them.
Also, just got off work so I'm getting unwound from the holiday and then I'll get my level ups and all that done. It looks like we are set on knowledge skills between us, so unless anyone has any other ideas/thoughts/objections I'll just put more ranks into the ones I already have.
Yeah, I'll eventually have all the knowledge skills. And there's no rush on planes. But I'll wait till I see what Eduard does to choose my second one this level.
And the nightmare is over. For all the complaints I seem to have posted quite a bit today. I guess my phone isn't *that* bad. Or maybe it was something to do on the drive. Home now and should have an in-character post up soon.
I always just round up for the hit die. So just take the 5 for average and don't worry about keeping track of which hp to take per level.
Alrighty, that answers my question. Just waiting on Eduard's knowledges. Though I may just go ahead and assume his aren't changing and finish up what I have here. I feel like I'm way over-thinking this today.
Crazy weekend. I'll have Radomir updated by tomorrow
Level 2: Bard
Favored Class Bonus: 1 skill point
HP:
BAB: +1
Fort/Reflex/Will: +0/+1/+1
Versatile Performance: At 2nd level, a bard can choose one type of Perform skill. He can use his bonus in that skill in place of his bonus in associated skills. When substituting in this way, the bard uses his total Perform skill bonus, including class skill bonus, in place of its associated skill's bonus, whether or not he has ranks in that skill or if it is a class skill. At 6th level, and every 4 levels thereafter, the bard can select an additional type of Perform to substitute.
Well-Versed: The bard gains a +4 bonus on saving throws made against bardic performance, sonic, and language-dependent effects.
Spells Per Day: +1 Level One
Spells Known:
0-Level: Ghost Sound
1-Level: Silent Image
Skills:
Ranks: 6+2 (Int mod)+1 (favored class) = 9
Acrobatics +1
Knowledge (Engineering) +1
Knowledge (Geography) +1
Perform (Oratory) +1
Perform (Percussion) +1
Ride +1
Spellcraft +1
Stealth +1
Use Magic Device +1
After sleeping on it I decided to go with Knowledge (Geography) to help out with mapping early on.
I'm going to take average HP and give the favored class bonus to HP as well.
All skills increased by one rank.
Edit: Oh, and taking Charm Person and Color Spray as spellbook spells.
Soren Fletcher leveled up. Pretty dry level overall
HP +7
BAB +1
Fort +1
Ref +1
Slayer Talent- Rapid Shot
Skills- +1 to all existing
From what the srd says about Owlbears, it doesn't seem as if they would make serviceable mounts. The handle animal DC also seems rather high, especially for the adults.
While it is considered impossible to truly domesticate owlbears due to their feral natures, they can still be used as guardians if contained within an area but allowed to roam and hunt freely there. Professional animal trainers charge up to 2,000 gp to rear or train an owlbear into a serviceable guardian that can obey simple commands (DC 23 for a juvenile creature; DC 30 for a fully grown adult).
And a thread on the message board on what to do with owlbear cubs.