Hot DM's Argent Corvids (Inactive)

Game Master Hotaru of the Society

Hello, fellow humans, doing human things!

This is the discussion Page. Somewhere up and to the left is the gameplay page, if you haven't dotted it. For those of you just tuning in...

Level: 2
Point Buy: 22. That's not a typo.
Alignment: No Evil.
Races: Just ask. Don't go 'I'm gonna play a centaur!'. I'm mostly laid back here. Just remember that being something really weird will make you stand out.
HP: Max.
Skills: Normal + 2 Background Skills per level.
Gold: 1000
Traits: 2, Drawbacks allowed but they don't get you anything (No bonus trait). One should be from the campaign traits.
Sources: Paizo Only (but feel free to ask, the worst I can say is no).

Optional Mechanics:
Fractional Base Bonuses
Automated Bonus Progression
Combat Stamina free for fighters, Feat for others.
Variant Multiclassing allowed.
Wound Thresholds.

Hey all!

I hear we need a cat translator. I'm looking at a LN or LG person-retriever Hellknight, looking to return their order to honor or to found a new order.

I'd be willing to mesh these together as I flesh out the concept.

What do we need as a party? What kinds of characters do we want - mechanically and flavorfully?

What we have currently:
A Kineticist
A Mesmerist
and a Kittyface.
Plus a Hellknight of some sort (which is so awesome for this campaign, even though it's totally lawful).

From a mechanical standpoint, I'm not sure what's needed yet. The mesmer is going to do a great job as a face character, but Kineticist is damage + utility, while Kittyface still needs to pick class, and Hellknight is almost universally going to be martial.

As for Fluff... I'd really like to help sink your characters in, once I know more about them. Campaign Traits should help with that, as well as basic concepts. I'll try ot tie some of the events to you as we go... kinda like Kiora does. :)

There's a -ton- of flavor here, and I'm -super- excited about Hell's Rebels. I was kind of 'meh' at first, but as I read, they actually have a ton of amazing lore. The exact sort of lore that makes me love Paizo in the first place. Hooray!

Scath as a Cleaner Slayer might be extremely useful.

To give an accurate idea of what you guys will be doing for the next several months:

The first book (which could take many, many months), is mostly all about getting a solid foundation for the Silver Ravens. With that in mind, it's going to be a lot of somewhat disjointed adventures, in which I work to get everything running smoothly and straight. There will be a couple of obviously key NPCs, but I -also- plan to keep NPCs that you guys find interesting and show interest in 'coming back' as it were.

That pattern continues. Most of your adventures will happen within Kintargo, the city proper. That won't always be the case, but picking 'forest' as your first Ranger's Favored Terrain may be unwise.

Likewise, avoid a 'blood in the streets' approach. The Player's Guide is pretty big on pointing out that making yourself out to be the bad guys is -not- a good idea... and the only folks who like that much blood are Nidalese folks. And they're a nation over. :)

That's why I said Scath might be useful as a Slayer (Cleaner), because they are extremely adept at hiding crime scenes, including deaths.

Ok, building Scath again, got a question on equipment. Normally, you'd spend no more than half your wealth on any one item.

However, Scath, being an animal, doesn't really have a lot of things to spend money on. No potions, no flint and steel, no books, no clothes, no nothing. Any issues with him buying just Armor (750gp living steel MW scale mail) and a pack saddle? I honestly can't think of anything else he'd need other than to buy food in town (raw meat might be slightly more expensive than a normal meal, although I'm sure there's plenty of rats to snack on) and a fake druid to follow him around pretending to be his keeper.

I have absolutely zero qualms about how folks spend their level 2 gold. :)

I think with multiple other players (one of which just asked about Sylvan Bloodline) and one of which was asking about slavery (Which all humans are slaves to cats anyway), you'd have a pet human somewhere in the bunch. :)

Just make sure you have a neat story for a living steel scale mail. :) My character in another campaign (where I drew half the players here from) has a living steel shield. It's such a cool material!

Subject to Change including her name but here is most the crunch for the Mesmerist

also if MDT wants I'll take share language

Scath

Share Language wouldn't help. Scath understands and can write in all his languages (Common, Elvin, Dwarven, Celestial, and Infernal). But his vocal chords can't produce the sounds.

Speak with Animals would work, and allow him to communicate directly. I'm afraid short of that, the only way for him to speak is a Circlet of Speech (4800gp).

Hello! Nice to meet you all.

It looks you could use some... divine mumbo jumbo? Maybe a Shelynite?

Or maybe I should like, read the player's guide first. :P

I'm likely playing a partial caster going into Hellknight Signifer, with at least one level of Inquisitor, likely.

I'd be down to take the Beastkin (cats) trait so that I could talk to Scath, but I'd need some sort of...you know... reason for it.

Although with my concept someone else being the cat translator would be... smoother.

Hey Leinathan, how goes? Long time no see.

Oh wow! Hi, mdt!
It goes great.

I'm back to give a general outline:

LN male halfling inquisitor (sanctified slayer, cold iron warden) 2
Str 16, Dex 14, Con 12, Int 7, Wis 14, Cha 12
Alt. racial traits: Practicality

My character is a halfling that was freed partway through his life. His family having been slaves, he's got the mindset that service to a higher authority is sort of what he's for. Freedom didn't traumatize him, though - it just allowed him to pick who he wants to serve.

I don't have an actual backstory just yet - I still need to work some things out with mahorfeus - but the idea was that when he was freed, he went seeking respect for himself and a respectable leader and found the Order of the Torrent Hellknights.

When Thrune arrived and dissolved the group, it gives him a reason to oppose what would normally be a lawful authority for him. Basically Barzilai doesn't deserve his loyalty...because he's a dick.

I hope to connect to another PC to serve as a foil and to give my character more reasons to involve himself with a rebellion.

Basic idea is: My law is better than your law
Also I wanted to play a badass and strong halfling.

Oh! Diety is the Empyreal Lord Olheon.

Hello everyone! I'll be whipping up a kineticist for the party.

Currently thinking CG Human(Chelaxian) Kineticist(Air/Water/?)|VMC Cavalier(Order of the Dragon). Will be focused on melee with hopefully a good bit of support/utility.

Still roughing out the background, but the general idea is ex-spy/assassin working for House Thrune (or some other allied noble house) who was spared by her target. She eventually turned and pledged herself to aiding others and working against House Thrune.

Thinking Ex-Asmodean for campaign trait, since she is directly opposed to House Thrune.

Leinathan is a free elf! Leinathan is going to serve the Potterses!

:)

Re: Scath: Man, I'm so not used to you having such a low stealth. Medium Sized Kitty was a surprise, sort of :)

Between you and one of the other characters, I'm thinking I could try to set up an encounter earlier... but I'll definitely need later books to do it properly. We'll see.

Re: Hellknight: Totally exactly what I set up for another PC for my face to face. So don't worry, I have ways to work that in. I'm not familiar with Signifier, so I'll read up on it in a bit.

Re: Juniper: Looks good. You'll be able to frequently change minds, and grease hinges where combat is likely. I'm going to try to work something in for you in the third or fourth book as a major thing.

I'll see what I can do for everyone a bit earlier in the campaign, as well. :)

Re: Scath: Man, I'm so not used to you having such a low stealth. Medium Sized Kitty was a surprise, sort of :)

It's impossible to make a feline using the character creation rules. A +4 stealth is 5 Race Points. Which is frankly insane, considering all the stuff you can get for 5 race points. If I couldn't be good at stealth, I figured I might as well go medium and to heck with it.

Picking up Skill Focus(Stealth) as a Static Bonus feat is 2 points and eventually gets you a +6. If you want good stealth you might consider that route instead. For 4 points you can pick up the human Focused Study and get 3 for the price of two.

Built in stealth focus seems reasonable for the race, if you drop grasslands stealth, that's mostly break even. Likewise, no speech and the loss of a few magic slots seems to make it fall 'under the wire'.

Focused study doesn't make much sense, though. :)

Would you like to go that route, kittiface?

So, something like this? (Modified it slightly, ended up 15 pts)
Type : 3RP Magical Beast (Assume same as Monstrous Humanoid in cost)
Size : Medium (because)
Speed : Normal
Stats : 4RP Advanced (+2 Str, Dex, Con), +4 Int, -2 CHA
Natural Armor : 2RP +1 Nat Armor
Improved Natural Armor : 1RP +1 Nat Armor
Fast : 1 RP +10 Movement
Bite : 1 RP 1d3 Bite
Claws : 2 RP 2x1d6 Claw
No Arms : -4RP (Opposite of Multi-Armed)
Climb : 2 RP (20 ft Climb Speed)
Stealth : 1 RP (SKill Focus (Stealth) at 1st level)
Skill Bonus (Stealth) : 2 RP (+2 Stealth)

Ends up with a total +5 to stealth, which is close to the original +8. Goes up to +8 at 10th level.

The stealth skill focus is 2 rp on its own. So adding in the +2 stealth would push it a little too high.

But +6 stealth for 2 Rp at level ten is a good buy. (Three earlier is clearly ahead of the curve. :))

Are you cool with just dropping the racial skill bonus and being a 14RP kittyface?

Type : 3RP Magical Beast (Assume same as Monstrous Humanoid in cost)
Size : Medium (because)
Speed : Normal
Stats : 4RP Advanced (+2 Str, Dex, Con), +4 Int, -2 CHA
Natural Armor : 2RP +1 Nat Armor
Fast : 1 RP +10 Movement
Bite : 1 RP 1d3 Bite
Claws : 2 RP 2x1d6 Claw
No Arms : -4RP (Opposite of Multi-Armed)
Climb : 2 RP (20 ft Climb Speed)
Stealth : 2 RP (SKill Focus (Stealth) at 1st level)
Skill Bonus (Stealth) : 2 RP (+2 Stealth)

Hmm, how about this then? Still 15 RP (same as an Aasimar), dropped one point of armor.

Seems good to me. :)

On another topic. I don't think guns will be a very good idea in the campaign. What with being extremely loud and noticeable. But I don't want to outright say no. On that line of thought, I'm also less familiar.

Does pathfinder have anything to make gunpowder firearms less... obnoxious?

Silence spell on your gun-man works well.

Oil of Silence silences your gun for an hour for 250GP

I don't know off the top of my head, but if not, adding an alchemical cartridge that acts as a silenced round would be one way of making use of them stealthily. With proper pricing it'd be a accessible for when it's needed without negating the drawbacks 100% of the time.

Ok, changes made to char sheet.

Stealth is 10 for now, down from 12, due to armor. Will go up (you're not used to Scath being at 2nd level). Going small would give him a +4 stealth, but also knock his bite to 1d2 and his claws to 1d6. I'm trying to decide if it's worth the +4 size bonus to stealth.

Hmm. That also gave me another idea.

Alchemical rounds that specifically don't 'boom' could work pretty well. Pretending the silence potion could be distributed and set to activate among each bullet, would give +5gp cost bullets. I'd probably make the silence not work on a misfire, though. And that's expensive for bullets, too.

But the new idea is actually having a magically silenced gun at some point. Sadly, as cool as that is... that's 64k all by itself. :|

This didn't go through for some reason the first time.

Don't forget: You'd also gain hit and AC, but lose cmb and cmd. :)

5gp a round is expensive, but if the gun user can craft(Alchemy), then it's not so bad, and it's really meant to be something for special situations.

As for permanently silenced, you could go for three tiers. Decide what the DC for hearing a gunshot is (probably 'hear sounds of battle' at DC -10), and have the first and second tier act as silencers instead of true magic silence. The first could increase the DC by 10, and the second by 20. I'd probably price them at half the rate of skill bonuses, so that'd be 5000 for the first, and 20000 for the second.

The first tier would make the gun sound about as loud as normal conversation, and the second as quiet as someone walking. Reasonably quiet enough to use somewhere without drawing everybody to you, but still leaving room for the perma-silence upgrade, or using the alchemical rounds. :)

Well, I'd actually be requiring the alchemy to use the Oil of Silence in the mixture. :) it'd be an expensive reagent, thus the 5gp is just mixed in.

As an aside... one of the items you guys might find just became a whole lot cooler if there is a gunslinger.

Seriously, I am excite.

There's the whispering gloves which are probably the coolest option to make guns quiet.

There's a really long-range sniper in one of my F2F games so if you're ever wondering about ways to make people fast, quiet and longer range he should know XD

As for my Hellknight idea, I hope it's not too boring that I'm doing the same thing as your F2F player.

Are there actually rules for guns being loud? I mean, I guess it's common sense that they're louder than most weapons, but I had always figured that just falls under the "sound of battle" Perception modifier. Same with say, an alchemist's bombs or any number of explosive wizard spells.

As for my character... I was thinking an evangelist cleric of either Shelyn or Milani. A hard choice, though my understanding is that the latter would have to be more sekrit - hardly material for standing on a soapbox and preaching. I was also considering going into the evangelist prestige class, depending on how far along we will level. Aligned Class seems a little strong to me though, so I'll defer to GM's judgment. :O

I don't know if that would work though. It's pretty specific about the effect only extending a couple inches from the gloves, which would rule out all but the smallest pistols.

Maybe if you had one hand where the actual combustion took place, and a second near the end of the weapon? Then you'd silence the sound of the initial explosion, and the sound of the bullet exiting the barrel. Of course silence needs line of effect I think, so you'd need a custom barrel that had some small holes in it near the ignition point.

@Markus: Not exactly the same. Just the sameish hooks. He's also a torrent hopeful. He's going for Constable Cavalier with Order of the Hammer. You're going castery. Very different. I'm actually happy that you're both similar as it will allow me to do a little less prep work for any encounters I opt to change up a bit. :)

Whisper gloves are super cool.

@Mahorfeus: I've always held alchemists bombs and guns and stuff to be distinctly easier to notice. How many times have you seen a fight broken up by a lawman firing his gun into the sky? :)

Aligned class is perfectly fine. I absolutely love evangelist. Remember, you're getting Everything a level later, and will never get your twentieth level power, and will barely get to use what you would unlock at nineteen. It's a steep trade when you see it from that perspective.

Likewise, Milani and Shelyn both get a lot of support. One is just more militant than the other. Of course Shelynite has a church at the start, as well. :)

@Drallidur: I'd rule that even rifles would make reasonable sense, as the trigger mechanism that results in the explosive noise is right next to your hand. That doesn't do anything for sound of battle, of course, but it'd silence the initial kaboom. Likewise, if you had two hands on it, you'd get several inches of Silence. I think rule of cool works well enough to not need to drill holes in the gun... unless you're a goblin. :) Then, shooting faster is its own reward.

It's perhaps a little poorly-worded but it's got most of the correct elements there. Tell me what you think.

Sorry for just leaving you hanging. I'd opened this tab on my kindle, and then went home :o

The very last sentence is really difficult for me to read.

If you're specifically talking about the 'fortress' in the city, it's actually the Order of the Rack that you would deservedly hate. They also like to gargle. :)

I meant to say that your typical LE Cheliax type of person came and took over Kintargo, which is overall much nicer than the rest of Cheliax.

I mean, the Order of the Rack were hired by Thrune. Both deserve the hate.

They do. They made the bad guy comically hateable. Dude's craycray.

Here's what I got so far. Still have more feats to grab, and a campaign trait to pick. And of course, it's subject to change. I'll need to think of a name for the lesser noble family he comes from.

Ruuuules:

Rule 0: Thou shalt listen to thine DM, for it has all the powers!
You should all be familiar with this. What I say, goes. I will always avoid using this rule, but as a human being, there will be times I will be unable to articulate precisely the problem I am having with a situation. Expect that the majority of the time, I will do my absolute best to give you a good reason for why I'm not letting something happen. This is an at-will RP, and you are free to leave whenever you like... and I am totes free to fire you. That being said, if there's a problem, I'll talk about it. If you have a problem, you should talk about it.

Rule 1: Thou shalt Post.
I expect roughly one post per day from folks. I will understand if this cannot be managed, and will most assuredly do my best to never be the -cause- of that. If you don't post within 24 hours of your combat turn, I will bot you. You can pregenerate your turn and put them into spoilers if you think you'll be busy. Thinking along these same lines, I'd really appreciate it if you guys were able to check Paizo two separate times per day. I understand if you can't and that life happens. The idea is that the gameplay should -never- stall for more than 14-16 hours, even in the worst case. If you expect to be unable to post, say something. Multiple absences without you being here may be grounds for expulsion at DM Fiat.

Rule 2: Thou shalt decide!
Every game needs deciders. And the first two people to agree to a course of action when given options will generally be the people who decide what happens. Exceptions include major decisions (where I will call for a vote from everyone) and my character would nevers (where I am willing to somewhat retcon). The latter should be used -very- infrequently, because it means you placing your will above other's will. If you simply aren't done with a scene, feel free to continue it in spoilers. :)

Rule 3: Thou Shalt Automate!
A tactics section will do us a world of good. If you have immediate actions (Or specific ways you use attacks of opportunity), it is in your best interest to tell me how to automate them. List any change to how you'd do things within a post, if this changes. I will roll saving throws for the effects of my baddies when they utilize them. I will also roll their saving throws.

Rule 4: Thou shalt maintain order!
I will do my best to maintain a posting format, wherein players roll first, in alphabetical order, and then enemies roll in alphanumerical order. If I forget anyone, I'll append it to the end, due to the way rolls are done. I'd appreciate it if actions were rolled in the order that they occur. If you have a pet, your pet will go on your turn along with you. You may intersperse your actions and your pet's actions within a turn. You should always roll your dice first, and any pet or summon's dice second.

Any questions? Any major things I missed?

At level 7 I'll be picking up leadership and currently looks like I'll have a level 5 cohort and 6 level 1 followers, how would you guys want me to build them?

• I've considered a bodyguard like a fighter or swash but with the level gap I don't know how effective that will be

• A: Go the healbot route with a cleric or oracle

• B: Do something like buffs/debuffs with a bard

• C: Make a craftier so we get our gear cheaper

• D: Utility Caster

• E: Spy

• F: Ideas?

G: I think it's way too early to decide, it's better to wait until level 6 and see what the game is like at that point.

Well, it can also help for me to already have a 'cohort' ready. So I can understand asking now. :)

Ok! Still need to write up her background, but I think my build is pretty close to finalized.

Also character appearance is settled upon, which is the most important aspect :P

Misha Stormborn

Yes, but unless you're using rocket progression, things will have majorly changed by level 6, and that's still a good 6 months of gameplay from 6 to 7 to introduce cohorts.

@Misha: I disagree. Name is most important! Appearance is -hard- if I don't find a picture first, though.

@Kitty: Good point. :)

Name is pretty important, but that's settled on too!

Edit: Also, looking at this Air's Leap power, wow!

Even if it's useless at 8th when I get Wings of Air, at 2nd level I already roll (1d20+10)*2 for my jump checks. Or (1d20+10)*4 if I take a point of burn! That's 5-15 feet high jumps w/o burn, or 10-30 with :o

I'm in with mdt on the cohort issue, though if you get to build your own my vote goes for a spy. It's something we don't already have.

I'm unsure the level gap matters as much as one might think it does. A level 5 guy is pretty strong. It's also possible that you fall in love with one of the already-there NPCs and decide there.

I'll have an alias, revised backstory and a reference picture by the end of tomorrow.

Re: Air's Leap. I go straight for Air Cushion instead. No, I can't jump... but I'm bigger to wind! :o

It'll be a bit for me to get notes set up, and get stuff pegged out. I've been -seriously- slacking on the note-taking side of things, relying on my mighty brain to remember it all. (Note: Not working as well as I'd hoped). :)