So I finally got around to updating Tofutee to Unchained Rogue.
There was a bunch of minor changes to the chassis but the core of the build is still the same.
Combat style is going to change though.
I can deal dex to damage with one weapon of my choice (Rapier) but that isn't much of a difference as I was going to select an agile amulet of mighty fists with our most recent money as my reward.
Frankly ripping face with full attacks has gotten dull over the various renditions I've played of it in the last year.
Now I can play a combat maneuver/debuff rogue wielding a single one handed weapon and still deal half decent damage in situations where my primary trick won't work.
Rogues edge isn't particularly useful but its nice to see rogues getting something that is supposed to be uniquely theirs.
You go right ahead and enjoy yourself Terquem. We shall be here when you get back.
I think that might make some sense. If this is a loot retrieval then the dungeon would unlock all doors and disable all traps to make retrieval easier. Then again they may not just to mess with the contestants.
I guess that question is really in Tofutees court. She is the resident trap remover, so I figure the choise should be hers :)
Without traps would/could make things faster...
Hrmm.. I'm of two minds on that.
Removing traps/tricks would mean the adventurers could rapidly blitz the dungeon retrieving staggering amounts of loot.
Letting us move faster and only really stop progressing in the dungeon on encountering a monster roll or another party of adventurers.
Assuming this part of the dungoen is "overgrown" with unlooted dead adventurers there is a good chance the monsters have just grabbed anything easily in reach and added it to their loot piles.
However what might be more interesting was making any trap rolls also have treasure.
EX: Pit trap with a dead adventurer at the bottom, Swinging axes with a discarded backpack dead center where it is hardest to reach.
Effectively changing most traps for skill challenges with loot as a reward.
I don't personally care, Tofutee is statted for combat just as much as she is for skills/ trap detection. So I'm not going to miss trap duty if we don't have it.
Heres a quick question for Terquem;
Would it be ok if I undid my lvl 5 feat and 1 skill point?
I would lose Imp Unarmed Strike and a level in Intuition.
I would gain Catch Off Guard and a level in linguistics (Read Common).
Then If I can pick up a massive rule book I would be good to go >:)
if not beast could likely make use of These rules to retrain a level/skill point.
It also occurs to me that you didn't pick a trait. We get one and only one.
Surprise weapon could be great fun for you.
However what might be more interesting was making any trap rolls also have treasure.
EX: Pit trap with a dead adventurer at the bottom, Swinging axes with a discarded backpack dead center where it is hardest to reach.Effectively changing most traps for skill challenges with loot as a reward.
I like this idea and think it would be a good way to go.
Relating to what you said in the recruitment thread.
Having seen it in action PvP combat in a play by post sets the game into a glacial pace that drives player interest through the ground. Every action has to be fully rules legal to the letter and any fun or interesting interpretations of the actions can result in a flurry of questions that lock the game down even further until the rules issue gets resolved.
Most PbPer's I've come across avoid it like the plague because it is really difficult to do in a manner folks consider fun.
As to your rule sets Terquem I'd say making the "Loot" dash being a different set up making some sense.
With the focus on speed and the removal or change of focus for traps its going to emphasise speed and ability avoid battles over the ability to win them.
After all if you can get the loot without fighting the monster you've pretty much won.
Though I'll repeat that including some method of rapidly recovering powers say once or twice through the tournament would make things more interesting and mean that with some rationing a use limit character like a wizard or barbarian could see the entire thing through while being able to contribute.
Heh. having a little sycophant monster following you around makes CE a much easier alignment to maintain.
Amusing introduction so far.
Though your familiars introduction brings up an interesting quirk due to tofutee being a plant. Immunity to mind effecting abilities and one can still receive telepathic communications because the ability doesn't technically say its a mind effecting ability.
Man is that ever weird.
Yeah, had an additional thought that I wanted to toss in.
And telepathy is weird in general so I'm not worried about it mostly.
A Book of It'Dupree would be hilariously funny to find ^_^ and i am sure it would love to be handled so... directly.
In the meantime, a really large rulebook would suffice >:D
Ya, Surprise Weapon would be a nice trait...
As for how we go through the dungeon, I have little desire to make it a loot dash, even if it would be more beneficial for us. I am ok with being sub-optimal or middling efficiency. I have found it is often more fun to make sometimes stupid choices if it would make a better story :)
I am not sure where you guys would be on it, but I will try and find a happy medium with you :)
PvP? Dunno. Ruuls idea is probably the best ive heard. I have only seen some minor pvp, usually 1v1s.
I forgot about the shroud XD That is funny and (checks...) Beast has both low-light and darkvision :)
as for plants and immunity to mind-affecting effects, the term "mind-affecting effects" is a definition, not a catch-all.
Specific effects like some forms of Telepathy will go through while others (like the spell Telepathy) will not.
Just another weird interaction, like water elementals dealing half damage underwater or a Weakness to eggs
Also, Hia Ruul! Welcome aboard :D also, the joining of this party does not grant immunity to jokes, stupidity or unwanted transformations... You have been warned.
just ignore the fineprint ^-^
Perhaps the one you get is already broken and just rattles off random and entirely useless facts of dubious accuracy .
As to the loot dash, if you missed it earlier we actually won't be keeping any of the gear we are obtaining. Whatever team brings back the most dead adventurer loot gets 50,000GP to be split by that team.
I'd prefer more interesting over efficient for this as well.
Stupid decision are fun. Stupid decisions let me stay as a wombat for an amusing chunk of time.
And yes, telepathy is weird.
Just like burning a stone golem to death with alchemist fire is dumb but effective.
I never actually noted the text in that spell. Weakness to eggs. I'm going to have to add that to an important NPC somewhere along the line. "Deathly allergic to eggs."
We've not had much excuse to explore the city proper as most of the places we went to were hubs for heading back into the dungeon.
As tofutee doesn't sleep and has nothing better to do beyond drinking newcomers under the table I imagine she knows plenty of the attractions in town.
I am absolutely making this stuff up though so I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out wrong.
The prospect of a city where monsters are a large chunk of the customers makes me think there'd be some interesting things for sale though.
As to the tournament perhaps the victors (or runner ups) could get sponsored by Jeffry's as delvers as well.
I think some of that was me and feral having similar schedules for a few days so we could have a dialogue like that.
Though I found Beasts manner of introduction quite amusing. And Tofutee has already established herself as a chattterbox when she's not concentrating on work so it all falls into place I guess.
I am entirely happy to make up random crap to populate your city with. this is the sort of city where such random things as a unicorn blood snowcones or a voyer/narcissist doppelganger propositioning folks might exist.
Just want to make sure I have it right.
Treasure that does not count for the tournament:
Gold coins, Gold bars, non magical gems, Non magical jewelry, Non magical works of art.
Hey there and welcome.
Couple questions.
If you find the game style of this appeals to you you should be aware that most times in the dungeon there are no lights.
The adventure we are currently on will have the lights on
With everyone else in the party having dark vision you might consider obtaining it as well.
Either by dropping your DR/10 to DR/5 or perhaps taking a thematic weakness.
Negative energy weakness might work as you are supposed to be an angel with most of your powers removed. I think?
Tofutee is going to be hard to sell on your use as a part of the team if you can't even see in the dark.
As you didn't honestly explain much in your back story it would be nice to know what the intent of your character being here is going to mean for Terquem and all us.
I mean I grasp that angel trainees can be amusing in a world of devils and monsters.
However you don't seem to have gone that route with a character that seems to be neutral evil.
Though that does make me wonder what god you are following that would let you take the Good domain while being evil. As warpriests can't normally select an alignment blessing unless their alignment happens to be that.
@Terquem
The way I've always run is that a character who is sapient is capable of taking class levels. Some classes naturally make more sense for certain monster but there is always the chance of something weird becoming amusing.
The Ettin with 5 levels of expert being the town shopkeep that constantly argues with himself over prices of things.
Most games I've seen doing the idea have made monster character have a level penalty equal to their CR.
EX: level 5 character minotaur (CR4) would have 1 class level.
Naturally this runs into problems once you get to higher level monsters as they can leverage a few levels of character classes much better than lower level ones.
EX: Succubus with two levels of anti-paladin, any monster with natural levels of a spellcasting class taking levels of the same class.
(One of the nastier boss monsters of pathfinder resulted from that little rules snarl)
Hello all! I dove right into a massive revision of my Appendix “A” document. Now, for the IAD 1 players (who are experiencing the Portals) this revision isn’t going to affect them. But for the IAD 2 game, big changes are on the way.
Appendix "A" revision 8
You don’t need to read the rest of this unless you are interested in my thought process. However, there is a bit at the end of this that I need some suggestions to help me with.
First, I looked at the original appendices in the Dungeon Master’s Guide (1987 edition) and they look like this
A – Random Dungeon Generation
B – Random Wilderness Terrain
C – Random Monster Encounters
D – Creatures from the Lower Planes
E – Alphabetical monster listing
F – Gambling
G – Traps
H – Tricks
I – Dungeon Dressing
J – Herbs, Spices, and Medicinal Vegetables
K – Describing Magical Substances
L – Conjured Animals
M – Summoned Monsters
N – Inspirational and Educational readingThen I looked at what I had done with Appendix “A” and saw where I think I went the wrong direction. Originally, Appendix “A” was only for generating the Dungeon and Treasures, not for generating encounters (that was done in Appendix “C”)
So here is what I did. I took all of the Monster Encounter tables out of Appendix “A” making it a bit smaller
Then I began writing a New Appendix “C” and here is where I need some suggestions. My current monster type table includes entries for all the monster types in Pathfinder, plus two entries for “Adventuring Parties” and “NPCS” and this was based on my old school thinking in terms of 1e AD&D. But! Pathfinder does not have a hard distinction between “Monsters” (creatures with HD based abilities) and NPCs like AD&D has. You can apply NPC (or PC) class levels to a huge assortment of Human, Demi-human, and Humanoid types (and in fact it is completely natural for all such creatures to have a “level” of some class no matter what).
So when is a Monster not a Monster? When it has Class levels, right?
What I am looking for is the...
Ok, I did a little reading and it seems the only creatures that can't have any class levels are the ones in the No Role category of the Monster Rolls, Here. You can read more on advancing monsters Here.
Not sure how much this helps though.
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Alright!
Okay, thanks Tofutee, it looks like not everything got translated from the PnP where I write the character to the profile, but I've got that now!
Ya, I don't know how that pesky "good" blessing got in there. That's been swapped out. The diety is Justitia, a neutral military goddess who cares about killing and guarding, and guarding and killing, in that order. Much like BUD/S, member of her celestial guard must pass special tests. This is his. (I've not seen much backstory for this campaign, but if there is more that I need to be aware of, just point it out and I'll suduko around it.)
Yes, your idea about darkvision is excellent, and I've taken that. The idea about taking sunblindness to compensate even more so. ;-]
Well it seems to echo my response so no real help there I guess.
Hrmm.. perhaps the Simple class templates could help in application?
I don't know how it will hold up in comparison to doing the actual maths required to grant a monster class levels but it would sure as heck be faster.
As to the contest part, you could likely set up a simple dice based method to determine the success and failure of other teams.
Perhaps a dice roll on a set value decided by the teams effective level or power. At least for them passing challenges like traps, monster and other teams.
Roll over and they pass it with little issue.
Roll under and they take a penalty to the next test. (as someone had to expend something valuable or useful. Spell, healing magic, consumables in order to succeed)
And I guess rolling under by certain values might impart more severe ones.
I suppose rolling up the area we'd be having the tournament in before might help but as its supposed to be a mammoth chunk of the dungeon we are looting I don't know how that would work.
Its going to be easier to just pretend on that part.
Hrmm..
Your treasure generator method sounds a lot easier though.
Any thoughts on my suggestion earlier about Imps and commentators?
it was the last few posts one page back on the discussion.
@Imrael
So long as you are aware that the city in question is controlled by a 'legitimate business woman' lich who is certainly not evil. The city in question is shrouded in darkness and a haven for monsters but also a major point of tourism for adventurers due to the dungeons it is famous for.
There is a set of laws that basically state fighting to be prohibited in the city. Said laws are enforced enough for murder centric monsters or adventurers to not get ideas.
Other than that its not a terribly serious game.
Sunblindness is going to suck for this coming adventure due to the fact that all the lights will be turned on and that nice -1 penalty will be following us all the way.
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I'm terribly sorry and this may be a dumb question, but it might be best to clear it up before we dive in to this, but: Are we not evil?
For some reason I got the impression that we were all supposed to be evil, but I just noticed that Tofutee is N and Bud is actually Lawful Good. I seem to have been wrong, then. Sorry, and I'll make that adjustment. Frankly, if I can be LN and spontaneous cast cure spells, that will make things much easier since our CE cleric can't. =)
In that vein, yes, Terquen, you're right. I didn't actually consider it, but you're right and taking Outsider (Native) makes much more sense. To compensate I'll take Vulnerability (electricity) since the chaotic nature of lightning (1-1165 damage anyone?) would be anathema to a being with ties to Utopia. The extra point lets me drop sunblindness to sensitivity and everyone can be happy forever. =)
Just let me know when we should re-start and do intros.
@Ruul
That was the bit I mentioned about Terquems recruitment style and how previously it had been used to keep the group mostly on keel with another team of players.
Once a group had a set of the 4 folks were free to pick something else. Hence why Bud our spell caster is an arcanist, he was a fifth player when a wizard was available.
And fits close enough that it was ignored as a hole in the party I guess.
Though yes the classic fifth is a bard. and it would be awesome to have one.
@Imrael
I'm vaguely sure that Native outsider costs 3 points and an elemental weakness grants 2 you you might still need to do some shuffling.
Meta wise you want to be evil because Ruul has a channel energy effect that heals evil people and harms good ones.
Plus Bud is a zombie so positive energy isn't the best option anyway. We've got a small horde of infernal healing wands that do the trick for out of combat healing.
Our alignments are different because *I think* of curses.
Bud got his Alignment flipped by a room and I got turned into a wombat.
That got fixed today but we probably ought to change it out soon.
Sorry for the confusion.
The last healer we had in the group was permitted to be neutral and channel positive energy instead. So you could likely do that if preferable.
However the basic idea was that our group is evil so you'd likely get dragged down to evil by being a part of our group.
More so as we are now aware that ambushing other adventuring parties is a permitted tactic in this tournament.
Yes we are the Camelot of evil.
And parsing though I find it amusing that you've modified the rules on treasure slightly so higher risk encounters carry a higher chance of reward.
Though you might want to add in a bit about dragons being a special case and modify treasure for those regardless.
Dragons are one of the few legacy creatures that have always been under-costed in challenge rating.
And no worries Terquem. Heavens knows that getting all this ready is a big pile of work. Gaming is supposed to be fun so get done at your own rate.
With the way this game has gone already I suspect we will find out own forms of amusement in your absence.
@Imrael
Sorry missed that part on your doing an intro.
Well we just had Ruul introduce himself in the bar we are all hanging out in. I imagine you could do the same.
We've been hanging out there for a bit and Beast is roaring drunk. There's a mushroom woman that smells like bacon and a dead man drinking ale.
Oh and an Albino minotaur. Plus plenty of other undefined stuff as this is an adventurer tavern.
Just whatever you do don't look at the sea hag doing burlesque down the way.
...
Ah I see it is too late.
Oh well.
Imrael appears to have been terribly scarred by his interaction with the scantily dressed sea hag. Perhaps once he has regained his fortitude, and his lunch, we shall see him again.
Tofutee on the other hand...
Hrmm well I realize now that Tofutee never got around to actually purchasing things with that giant pile of money.
I suppose it does weight something like double her bodyweight, hard to drag around.
*shifty glance*
I mean...
Tofutee just looks unprepared. Thats a clever ruse to lure adventurers into a false sense of security.
.
.
But no, I'll get that done now.
So it sounds like for the immediate future we had some general plans.
Beast was going to go looking for a 'LOOT' tournament rulebook at least.
I'd been planning on using the time before the tournament to scout the front runners so we could perhaps have a general idea as to who to avoid. (Yes I'm aware, mostly useless in a randomly generated dungeon with randomly generated adventurers.)
Though for the sake of comedy I think it would be really amusing if Tofutee got roped into helping prepare the Snowcone stand for the rush of spectators/vultures that will be showing up for the tournament.
Ruul is accurately portraying an adventurer seeking Wenches and mead
Bud is attempting to get drunk and doing magical wizard research things that totally look like sleeping and/or doing nothing to the uninitiated. Really its highly complex meditation though.
Imrael.. Uh I guess your plan is to also hang out until the tournament? Also your 'fish out of water and so painfully obvious you are an angel it hurts' gag amuses me.
Tofutee will be thinking you are puling her leg the whole time. It ought to be great.
You ought to get along great with the demon worshiper our group just picked up.