Serinbaal the Lands of Torment ("Dark Sun" Homebrew Pathfinder 1e)

Game Master Sebecloki

Hey Seb,

Are we using Skill Unlocks?

Hey Seb,

Are we using Skill Unlocks?

Yeah, I'm not sure it's come up -- I'm happy to just give everyone the skill unlock and stamina feat for combat tricks for free. I don't think anyone's used either of those things, or expressed any interest, but you can have either for free if you want to use one of those subsystems.

Devapala's first post is up.

There's a HOP feat that requires Signature Skill, and gives you skill unlocks for every skill you have at least 5 ranks in.

Hamza isn't super skill focused, but I was thinking that might be a pretty cool feat to take.

okay, so, catching up here, I'd like to stick with my gestalt combo which means I'll go from:

gestalt 5/mythic 3

to:

gestalt 6/mythic 3

We're backfilling feats to have 3/level, so ensure I have 18 (with up to 1/level being horrifically overpowered). Do I have the summary right for my choice?

I don't expect to get all of my feat choices done tonight, but likely most by tomorrow.

Do we actually get less feats than before?
Then I would have to get rid of some.

There was the "bin of feats" that was given out at levels: 1, 3, 5; and then there were the "bin of fighter bonus" feats given out at levels: 1, 2, and 4. If I understand correctly we're just fill out those categories, so I would fill in 4 more feats for the prior levels and then pick the 3 for this new gestalt level.

okay, so, catching up here, I'd like to stick with my gestalt combo which means I'll go from:

gestalt 5/mythic 3

to:

gestalt 6/mythic 3

We're backfilling feats to have 3/level, so ensure I have 18 (with up to 1/level being horrifically overpowered). Do I have the summary right for my choice?

I don't expect to get all of my feat choices done tonight, but likely most by tomorrow.

Look above I outline the feat progression in response to Hamza; it's not 3 a level. It's 2-4 on the gestalt levels and 1-2 on the prestige and mythic tiers.

There was the "bin of feats" that was given out at levels: 1, 3, 5; and then there were the "bin of fighter bonus" feats given out at levels: 1, 2, and 4. If I understand correctly we're just fill out those categories, so I would fill in 4 more feats for the prior levels and then pick the 3 for this new gestalt level.

Look above, don't add the red pool feats on top of everything else -- I'm bumping you up to the progression outlined above. The pool feats are part of getting to the 2-4 per level for gestalt levels and 1-2 for prestige classes and mythic tiers. Moving forward, we'll keep that progression now that we've back filled to it as if we had started that way.

Reposting for everyone:

Stygian Slayer

Hamza Mīnakshi wrote:

Hey Seb, I hate to be a pain, and am sorry to ask this, but since feats can increase the capabilities I have with Hamza,

Exactly how many should we have at 6th level gestalt, 2 levels PrC, total ?

Also, for the purposes of Gestalt/Prestigious/Magic-User and any similar feats that calculate their effects as half our *total* levels,

Are we 6th level or 8th level?

you're 6th if you don't take the 2 prestige levels, 8th otherwise (mythic doesn't count for levels, as far as I know).
]

Gestat progression
1 lv-4
2 lv-2
3 lv-4
4 lv-2
5 lv-4
6 lv-2

18 total

Mythic progression
1-2
2-1

3-2

3 or 5 total

Prestige progression'
1-2
2-1

3 total

Hey Seb,

I forget, for the purposes of Automatic Bonus Progress, do we calculate based off of our actual level (6/8) or did we get some sort of boost to that?

In the giant itp game it was

1- 4 Feats
2- 4 Feats
3- 2 Feats
4- 4 feats
5- 2 Feats
6- 4 feats

The idea being that you gained feats as if Both sides of the Gestalt were fighters (Feat at 1, 2, 4, 6), who also gained a normal feat every level, instead of every odd level

Just confirming that difference to ensure no wires got crossed

Hey Seb,

I forget, for the purposes of Automatic Bonus Progress, do we calculate based off of our actual level (6/8) or did we get some sort of boost to that?

based on level +2, the value for almost no magic items on the table in Unchained.

In the giant itp game it was

1- 4 Feats
2- 4 Feats
3- 2 Feats
4- 4 feats
5- 2 Feats
6- 4 feats

The idea being that you gained feats as if Both sides of the Gestalt were fighters (Feat at 1, 2, 4, 6), who also gained a normal feat every level, instead of every odd level

Yes it's supposed to be -- why is it 4 and 1 and 2. Am I missing something in the fighter progression?

EDIT: sorry, Genth is right, I forgot Fighters get a bonus feat and 1 AND 2. I'm going to make a long post to summarize all the build rules tomorrow so everyone can check stuff. Thank you for your patience.

Because a Fighter gets a "Fighter Bonus Feat" at level 1 and level 2.

Level 1) 1 Normal Feat, 1 Fighter Feat [x2 for each Gestalt side] =4
Level 2) 1 Fighter Feat, 1 'Getting a Normal Feat Every Level' [x2] =4
Level 3) 1 Normal Feat [x2]

And so on.

Again, this is what was in the Giantitp game anr we had the same discussion there. If you decide its 4-2-4-2-4-2, amd just stick with that, that is fine.

Because a Fighter gets a "Fighter Bonus Feat" at level 1 and level 2.

Level 1) 1 Normal Feat, 1 Fighter Feat [x2 for each Gestalt side] =4
Level 2) 1 Fighter Feat, 1 'Getting a Normal Feat Every Level' [x2] =4
Level 3) 1 Normal Feat [x2]

And so on.

Again, this is what was in the Giantitp game anr we had the same discussion there. If you decide its 4-2-4-2-4-2, amd just stick with that, that is fine.

no, you're right, I was just going by memory, I checked the fighter table in the CRB

Seb, there's nothing in your most recent IC post :p

i just fixed it

I suppose I should write my character blurb, since I'm talking about focusing on RP. :D

Ri'Kli'Klek was a lower-ranking warrior in the Red God's forces... and a double agent. While he had originally been drawn in by the Red God's promises of a return to the glories of the Blue Age with the Kreen ascendant, he came to learn over time that his leader's true ambitions were much more self-centered and destructive. The more he learned of the cost of defiling, the more he knew it would not bring about a new golden age but rather the end of life on Athas.

And so he quietly contacted some of those who fought against the Red God, and started secretly working with them. His low rank both aided and harmed his efforts, for there was little focus on him, but he did not have access to the sort of information that would make a true difference in the fight.

Events came to a head quickly, however, and Ri'Kli'Klek was soon swept up in the final desperate battles to seal away the Red God and his Fingers. But the thri'kreen warrior found himself seriously outmatched in the fight, unable to contribute meaningfully yet again, particularly due to the weaknesses built into him by the Red God's 'gifts'. And so he instead aimed for the future, climbing into one of the stasis cocoons within the complex in hopes that his allies would prevail and he himself would be able to guard against future interlopers who might disturb the seal they were fighting to place upon the Red God.

Instead he has awakened to find the Tombs crawling with outsiders who speak in strange ways and who could clearly overpower him if they wished. And so again he feels himself useless in the hour of need, able only to watch these strangers and hope he might persuade them to aid him in sealing the Tombs once again, lest the end of all life again threaten Athas.

Ri'Kli'Klek is a disciple of an ancient tradition emphasizing economy of motion, stillness, and tranquility of thought. Ironically enough, this means that he is trained to move with incredible swiftness--he can spend the maximum amount of time still if he takes as little time as possible getting where he wants to, and effeciency in moving lends itself to doing so. He is very disciplined, and tends to keep his true thoughts and feelings hidden thanks to his experience hiding his intentions from the forces of the Red God. He's still very much in this mindset, as to him, he was fighting the Red God just yesterday.

Build-wise he was supposed to be kind of a dexterity-based monk supplemented by useful psychic powers, but I didn't really have a clear idea of what I wanted his build to look like beyond that. Hence why I'm thinking I'll just keep him out of any combat and not keep his build up-to-date, but rather just participate in the role-playing part.

Cae is a descendant of an ancient tribe of leonin, the Nemeans. He carries the spirits of his ancestors with him and believes that to be the source of his powers. He has strong ties to the past and the land.

Born into extreme poverty, he was sold at a young age to a noble family of the city of Balic. Raised with the family's only child, a daughter, he was trained to be her loyal servant and eventual concubine. He is quite devoted to the Lady Arsione. After she and her mother needed to flee the city, he tracked them to these ruins.

Mechanically, Cae is a support character with buffing and debuffing being his main contributions in combat.

Ya know, when I woke up to 11 new game play posts, I was expecting combat to have moved on some...

I think we're still waiting for Amunet-Ra to post combat actions.

OK I think I've collected all the build rules stuff and tried to harmonize them between the three groups I'm collecting here.

It's posted in Campaign Info for future reference.

Let me know if you have questions, there will inevitably be some details to sort out, and I'll keep editing it here to have all the bobs and wheels in a single central location for reference.

What did we do about templates? I still need to update that. I think we said up to +3 right?

Okay I updated the battlemap -- the current set up occurs over 2 tiles that are next to eachother, they are the first two slides in the battlemap presentation. Move yourself where you want. I marked the slassan room on the map.

Two things I noticed in the build rules:

1) Several of the links do not work. It looks like you forgot the = sign after the first [url]

2) There's nothing on automatic bonus progression, and I'm fairly certain we're using that. Course, that might be my mistake, as I know you use them in your other games.

*IF* we are using them, are using them at level(6/8) or is there an increase to that(I believe some of your other games have some sort of + to level for determining ABP bonuses).

As far as templates, I have no idea what you allowed during character creation. However, Hamza has both Shadow Creature and Shadow Lord, for a +3(though a lot of the benefits from Creature are subsumed/surpassed by Lord).

Also, under feat progression, you listed PrC as:

1 2
1 2
3 1

Total = 4 or 5.

However, we can only have 2 levels in a PrC, so unsure why the 3 is there.

I would edit the PrC progression to read:

1 2
2 2

And then

3 1

If we're are supposed to actually have 3 levels in a PrC(I'm guessing it's a mistake).

I was just cutting and pasting from the mythic tiers, I'll fix that.

Fixed links

ABP as level +2 so that's either 8 or 10 depending if you took the Prc Levels.

Sorry for all of these posts, lol, but reading over the 'Chopping Down the Christmas Tree' link.

Are we using *all* of that? The bonus feats for gifts/knacks, +2 to stats every 2 levels, competence bonuses, etc?

If so, will this be in addition to or in place of ABP(which again, I'm pretty sure we're using, but obviously if not, never mind, lol)

ABP and the homebrew thing simulataneously -- sorry I forgot about that too -- that should be quick to update, it's just a few more feats and bonuses. Updated.

Thanks for helping me edit, this is a lot to try to systematize.

EDIT: Let me know if I need to move some stuff around to different sections, I'm still trying to figure out how to list everything in a coherent order.

Psst! In case you hadn't noticed, Seb is kinda *insane* :P in the best way heh

Question tho actually: for CR based things from our Templates, do we count as CR=Character Level or do we add the CR from the templayes as well?

Psst! In case you hadn't noticed, Seb is kinda *insane* :P in the best way heh

Question tho actually: for CR based things from our Templates, do we count as CR=Character Level or do we add the CR from the templayes as well?

mythic doesn't add to character level, as far as I know. I'm not really sure about templates -- it adds CR to monsters, but PF doesn't have the LA system from 3.5, so I think it's harder to say.

I'm inclined to say the templates don't count for CR for ABP etc. right now, because that's going to be a mess if one person has a +2 templates, and another a +1, or whatever. It will be a problem to balance with Jimbli, who is just a halfling, because that will give everyone else much higher values for a lot of things. I'm going to have to give him and anyone else without templates (maybe Rokan and Eahwe too?) some kind of balancing mechanism like another psionic doodad or PrC levels or something if we calculate CR that way.

Also, we're humming along fine, and I'm not concerned this game is going to die -- we can take a couple of days or this week just to finish up rules issues and rebuilds if everyone wants and I'll just do some fluff posts to keep something in the gameplay feed.

I was more asking because

Personally, I enjoy *insane*/*crazy* games. It lets me explore concepts/theorycrafts/builds that might not be possible in most games.

Hamza is actually the next step in a character concept I had for a different game here on Paizo: Drisquar, a fallen Bralani with the Alacritous template.

The concept is pretty simple, based on a quote from a VtM speed based power: In combat, as in all things, speed kills.

Hamza isn't the fastest, but with all his various teleport affects, he's pretty damn fast and deadly.

Dris's build has only Stalker levels as that class lends itself nicely to the ambush attack style I wanted. However, Harbinger adds in a fair amount of speed and movement based increases and bonuses, so being able to use both is pretty awesome.

I was more asking because

** spoiler omitted **

My argument for these kinds of games is partly my own collection habits and partly a rules issue.

I have 1,000 + pdfs and a whole library of hard copy stuff. I have been collecting RPG material since I was 8 years old almost continuously and I am now in my mid 30s. I like to actually have an opportunity to use as much as possible, such as having more slots for options.

There's no reason to have 1,000+ feats if you can only use a handful and they're mostly predetermined by the confines of build requirements and feat taxes. That's just the illusion of choice/customization in that case. I like to ACTUALLY have choices.

I spent years reading these forums and about different rules options before I offered to DM something -- the thing that's great about PbP is you can find players who know the system well enough to do these kind of games. I don't think I could find that in real life. The most recent 5e group I participated in, only 2 out of like 6, basically me and the DM, even understood how RPGs are played on any deep level, much less anything about the DnD rules. And I was the only one who knew anything about Forgotten Realms.

That sounds very, very familiar.
And being in the late thirties, there are additional time constraints as well as most people can't stay on something that long reliably in real life.

That's another issue -- my last real life game met once a week, but sometimes we'd have to take 2-3 week breaks b/c of people's schedules. You can imagine our progress through the Mines of Phandelver wasn't very fast, and that was with sessions that went most of the afternoon when we did them.

Right now, I work at night on the weekends, and have to sleep during the day on saturday and sunday, so I couldn't even try to do something like that if I wanted to and the people were still around (most moved).

Rather than making more posts, it might be time to get this into (e.g.,) a google doc where folks can directly comment on the confusing parts and then see it solidify in one place.

Man, I thought I had that right with my summary, lol.

Well playing during the week online on a VTT is an option.

I did that for a long time and it worked quite well, but the campaigns all ended sadly.

The other issue is I suppose what time I would need to prepare -- I don't think I could do such elaborate story telling and maps if I had to have everything together for a 2-3 hour session. It's a different approach to gaming. I think I'd have to just use stuff 'out of the box' -- it also discourages players from using builds and actions where you have to look up tons of stuff -- like grapple.

Alright, so posting the short blurb about our characters.

Ehawee is a seeker/shaman from her tribe. It is a more combat focused tribe, and from what I understand from Sebi's info may have some small conflicts with the other elves, as her tribe is a bit more aggressive and new to the area. She is somewhat a combat support person, as I built her to be a bit of a midline fighter with the support options of the classes. I feel she is not perhaps as narrow in her views of the other tribes, nor a bit as hopeless about this world, feeling it can be brought back to its former glory, but smartly. Whether or not this is true though, is completely left to the future.

Can everyone take a look at the battle map (it's the first 2 slide on the battle map googleslides presentation, and position themselves where they're supposed to be? I need to know range for the golem's next actions.

EDIT: each of the squares is supposed to be 10' by 10', so I tried to make the characters about 5' square/half of that.

I don't see my guy.

Can't move myself from phone or kindle atm. Need to wait for pc access in the evening.
Amunet-Ra should be next to the golem though because she attacked. She had 10 feet reach.

I don't see my guy.

Just put him in, sorry

All good. =)

Is Slide 1 the room we came through, or a whole different room?

Slides 1 and 2 are adjacent on the map if you look at the overall picture on Slide 3.

The room with the pool is at the bottom of the map to the right. You went up the stairs in the main central area, and into that chamber.

The yellow and red lines on the big map show where Eahwee and the rest of the party came from to meet up in front of the room with the slassan.

Excellent, that helped a lot, thank you.