I thought Velius was interested? Hmm. I'd rather bring a new character over, at this point because I have the concept down and it seems very fun and much more "nobility"—Sir Darren was more a "paladin of the open roads and common folk" sort than an actual literal Lord of Taldor.
One thing to consider is the point buy—extremely high for this campaign, which is fine, but we're definitely going to be a bunch of superheroes.
Please read this and tell me if I've made any glaring mistakes, or overlooked anything. Today has been hectic for me, and I'm sure something went missing here. For your Consideration:
Recruitment:
Taldor is a land of lost glories, an empire teetering on the brink of ruin. The nation is stretched thin and threadbare, having lost several satrap states like Cheliax because of massive overreach. Taldor's courts, once bastions of civility, honor, and justice, have become diseased, filled with corrupt bureaucrats, backstabbing nobles, and a pampered emperor who symbolizes all the empty decadence and power-mongering of the elite. Whispers of a new war with Qadira echo in the nation's courts, threatening to bring the final blow to the ailing land if the desert kingdom decides to finally retake Taldor. The age is dark and the problems are many. It is clear that Taldor needs heroes. Will you step up and breathe life back into the nation? Or will your actions inadvertently snuff out the kingdom forever?
This will be a game of courtly intrigue and world shaking politics. While that may indicate to you that martial characters have a less dramatic role to play in this story, I assure you, Taldoran nobles LOVE their chivalric knights, and there will be the ability to venture forth in to the dark dungeon from time to time. Being aware that this is a more social-type game, please consider that you should have some ranks in social skills. Failing ranks in social skills, you should have the ability to compel me with your writing (I’m looking for your social skills to either reinforce your words or to help me overlook blunders).
I will also be including a special homebrew twist to this adventure. Please create your characters as follows, and then view the “Special Rules” spoiler for this additional information.
Level: 12
Ability Scores:24 point build, 1-1 scale with a base of 10.
Race: While all Paizo approved are acceptable, Preference will be shown to the Standard Races (i.e. Human, Elf, Dwarf, Halfing, Gnome, and Half Orc).
Classes: Paizo, and Dreamscarred Psionc and Path of War classes only
HP: Max per level
Skills:+1 skill point per level
Feats 1 Bonus feat at first level
Traits 2 standard traits. You may receive a third trait if you take a drawback.
Fluff: This is the important part! Your Character is a 12th level noble of Taldor, you didn’t get to be that way by sitting on your thumb and spinning around. What makes your character particularly suited to being a Noble? Were you born this way or have you been ascended by right of the Emperor? Are you interested in playing the Grand Game, or do you sneer at the thought? Please give thought to this, I want interesting characters.
Things you should include in your fluff: At least 1 good standing relation; At least 1 sour relation; Why would you be interested in reviving the might of Taldor in the face of receiving such lucrative spoils just for being a noble?
Gold to purchase equipment with: 110,000gp.
Alignment No CE; the other Evils will not knock you out of contention, but your character MUST be civilized in your Scheming and plotting and must be capable of playing on a team without trying to murder their associates. This is will be a game of intrigue, not of “how many bodies can my carpets hold?”.
You will be receiving 10 “Pseudo-Gestalt” levels of Noble Scion to represent you noble heritage or the ascension to nobility. These levels will be in conjunction with your levels of chosen class. What I mean when I say “Pseudo-Gestalt” is that I will be giving you all of the class abilities of the Noble Scion, with none of the skills, saves, attack bonuses or HP gained from the class.
There are stipulations to these abilities, however!
As follows:
1) When selecting your Regional expertise, you can NOT select The Satrapy of the Desert
2) When selecting your Dilettante Studies you can NOT select Dilettante Scholar
3) Your Servitor is assumed to be your estate Steward, and will only be attending to your estate matters. Please give a description of how n depth you would like this to be, as I will be controlling your estate in the background while you are not there.
4) While money gained from Affluent can be spent on anything, I would like you to focus this spending primarily on your estate. This money comes to the whopping sum of 41250gp.
5) You have the option of gaining a free Cohort of your same level, because of the Noble Scion ability Greater Leadership. You do not NEED this cohort, but it is suggested that you use this option to supplement the things you can’t do . Your followers are assumed to be your estate servants and peasants
With those stipulations in mind
You are assumed to have a small Villa in Oppara whether or not you choose to purchase a large estate, this was either a gift from the Emperor or a Family Villa.
You do not have to purchase your estate or build your cohort prior to the end of recruitment if you don’t want to, though the effort will not go unnoticed. There will be a full week after recruitment to work with the other players to establish your history, reputation, estate, and other matters.
Your Cohort follows the same standard creation rules as listed above, and do not get the special rules.
I was thinking about that, T-Beard. I don't want super heroes, just regular people. Any ideas on what to set that at?
15 points or so?
I might tweak the blurb a bit about it being a lost GM, just because this sounds like a slightly different sort of campaign—focusing on the intrigues and drama of the rich and famous, rather than heroes working directly to save their country. While we may not all be combat heroes, just the 10 levels of noble scion alone will make us hugely rich, important, hard to assassinate people possibly responsible for things like who becomes the next ruler of Taldor and what sort of laws get passed.
You could set it at 15, or something like that—or use a normal point buy instead of the original posting's all-abilities are equal, though I'd ask Commandodude his opinion on that since he's the one porting a character. Alternately, maybe a 20-point-buy for characters and 15 or 12-point for cohorts.
Oh, also: the several bonus feats from Noble Scion should probably replace the campaign bonus feat (with maybe the exception of carried-over characters retaining their bonus feat instead). Max HP is another thing that you may or may not want to keep. Possibly CommandoDude has better opinions on all this.
I'm off to my F2F game tonight, I'll wait for everyone's input before making the final adjustments.
I agree with the feat bit though.
I always play with full hp, I don't feel it's terribly important at these levels though.
Too bad you can't make multilayered folders with basic html.
I'm not going to create a separate alias, I'll just copy what I have onto a Word doc and leave it for later. 20 pb is fine I think. I'm not sure 4 points makes much of a difference either way, most of the power is going to come from magic items (and especially magic item crafting). I'm still planning on using my cohort as a mount, where does that leave us with followers? Are we allowed to use them for skills/magic backup? (Does Noble Scion leadership even grant followers?)
It does grant followers. For the most part, I'd treat them as servants, household, and the like that you don't need to pay—mostly because the Leadership feat specifically recommends that you don't use them in battle. But maybe if we get a proper tactical open-field-of-battle fight going they make more sense, I don't know.
Those 20 points are still a huge boost over a normal 20-pt buy when you can trade them point-for-point. (I was thinking either normal 20-pt buy or 15 at 1-for-1, but stronger characters are fine.) I'd also make sure you mention not going over the typical 18-score-before-racial modifier that was left out of the original recruitment.
I've limited the uppermost scores in the draft above to a level I think is appropriate (24 after racial mods). I think I'll drop it to 15pb 1-1.
Is your mount intelligent? If yes, then it's a cohort, elsewise, it doesn't qualify. However you'd like to play it.
Specifically for you Lex, I'd understand if your estate was more of a training ground than an actual estate. If you would like to flavor it that way.
If you already have leadership, you can get a different feat since you get it for free.
I don't think you'll see anyone with a 24 stat unless they're a caster (and in that case it might be best to bring it down lower since a SAD caster could easily push their casting stat over 30) 15pb 1-1 will generally end up looking like a regular 20pb if stats are spread around evenly. Regarding the cohort mount, it is intelligent and it comes with unique stats.
Regarding the downtime rules, I'm really unfamiliar with them and the d20page...well it looks like a dang wall o text. I guess my primary questions is 1) If we invest GP into it do we get GP out of it? 2) How much 'downtime' is assumed to have...occurred? We can use followers for crafting right? It looks like there's also downtime rules for magic crafting as well, can we use those? (Assuming I figure it out)
Also, are you going to do a GMPC?
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Hi guys. I haven't really been paying attention to what we are changing or aren't, I've been a bit swamped with the lead up to my wedding (two weeks!) and I don't have the energy/time to be a useful contributor to this until I'm on the other side of the wedding/honeymoon.
If you guys are up for putting me in a 'pending' state until about this time next month (June 23rd or so) I can hopefully pick things up at that point and jump in. Right now I feel I'd be a dead/one line poster at best until then, and that's not fair to you all.
Blackwall will have occasional appearances, though it'll primarily be based on his duty as a constable. Opilio may also have contact with you guys, but I'm thinking that'll be limited as well. I don't really like the whole GM plays a character too angle.
I was looking at the downtime rules as a way to purchase estate items like a tower or a guest villa. There hasn't been any down time just yet (what there was prior to game is reflected in your affluent ability and what you are able to purchase using that capitol)
I assume followers of the adept variety are capable of making rudimentary magic items based on their maximum spell levels, and assuming one dedicated themselves to creating magic items. I'd prefer if you not utilize that just yet however (unless you already have).
The downtime rules do give the ability to craft and build in long run time scales, and I will be using them eventually. As it stands, I've also got to read through the wall'o text because I'm not as familiar with them as I'd like to be. There are ways to turn your money into more money using these rules, and it will be assumed that your steward is constantly attending to your investments as part of their estate duties.
I believe also that I will be dropping the point buy to a 15pb 1-1.
Fifteen points will work. Off the top of my head, that's one mere attribute point away from Lady Gabrielle's original state array. Less work for me, hehe.
Also... What do you envision, out-of-character, to be the role of the cohorts granted by the Scion abilities? Will they be constant companions? Behind-the-scenes assistants? A second adventuring party? Something else?
-Matt
I'm seeing your cohorts being your seconds. Likely dueling and adventuring on your behalf when doing so yourself would be inappropriate or considered too endangering for a noble.
The assistants by your side, trusted advisors, and your eyes, ears, and hands where a nobles couldn't or shouldn't be. Your cohorts will be all of these things.
As they are your level, you will occasionally be assuming direct control while they are apart from your main character.
So to answer your question Matt, yes.
It has been a long time since I played a character who wasn't a lone wolf, largely because of all my time in organized play, so this will be an interesting challenge. I wonder what I will come up with.
-Matt
Sorry for the issues, everyone! Recovery has not been fun, but I am well now. Relearning how to use a keyboard is not exactly a walk in the park.
While I am sad that this campaign has been taken over in the time I was absent, I am rather happy that you all have found a DM/GM willing to take over such an ambitious campaign.
@GM Leviathan: If you need any help figuring out the campaign, please let me know. If I fail to respond, ask my friend Ange de la Nuit to get in touch with me.
Dude, Take it back! This was just supposed to be a side game while we waited on you.
Unless you feel like a you aren't up to it. I haven't posted the Recruitment for extras, and I'm not sure how far into Character revamp the players are.
Velius seems to be largely unable to attend game for the next few weeks as he gets married and goes on his honeymoon.
I'm glad to see that you are recovering. From what Ange had said, it didn't sound like you were in as bad a condition as you apparently were.
Oh wow, it was that bad? It's good to hear from you though, thought you were dead for awhile there. Are you stepping down? I'm sure we'd all be happy for you to come back in if you wanted/are able to.
Oh wow, it was just a side game?! Count your GM as officially back in the fold, so to speak! Let me check and see who all is still up for it! :D
(GM LG, This is the GM alias of Detective Blackhart)
As it stands currently:
Commandodude with Lexarius
Thunderbeard with Sir Carter
Phoenix Hunter with Detective Blackhart
Are all ready to go.
LordLuke with Velius Kross has stepped out for a bit for his wedding and honeymoon.
I'm not sure who your 5th was going to be, but that was everyone initially recruited.
Matt has been hanging out here because he's terribly interested in this game.
Yep, tons of interest from over here. I'm looking at an Unchained Ninja10/Sohei Monk2, a version of my favorite Taldan aristocrat character from PFS.
-Matt
Ok... So GM LG and I have been talking, and he's letting me make this announcement:
We will be doing both games as an interwoven story.
That means that you guys (as well as myself) who were recruited into the original game will be playing with the characters meant for this game. While those of you who wish to partake in the second game will be allowed first dibs on a position. If you don't wish to join the second game, please let me know right away so I can compensate by getting the recruitment going sooner.
To be clear:
Lords of Taldor: Reviving the Empire will be a story about legendary heroes of Taldor, run by GM LG
while Lords of Taldor: Ascending Majesty Will be focusing on the courtly maneuvers of noble houses and their loyal servants, run by myself.
If you wish to be in both games this means that you will have 3 characters in play at once: Your Hero (For Reviving the Empire), Your Noble and their Cohort (For Ascending Majesty). There will be occasional cross over, and your maneuvers in both games will be affecting the other. The player exception to this is that Matt is not technically a player in the first game, so will only have the 2 characters.
Ok, so who is still up for the game? I am really interested in seeing how the game will go with the interweaving of stories!
I'm still here! I really liked the theme of the original game, as well as the diplomacy/spycraft-centric side game—but that one I still think will have a different tone.
My character for Leviathan's side game started out roughly similar, but has now evolved into a venerable-aged “armchair general” inquisitor with a strength of 3, a magical hook hand, and an animated chair...
Lord Marion “Inkwell” Rook
LN Inquisitor 11 (Irori) / Monk 2 (Martial Artist)
Role: Spymaster, Comic Relief, Tank!?
Age: Venerable
Str 3, Dex 8, Con 6, Int 24, Wis 24, Cha 18
Description:
A man in his eighties, barely able to walk under his own strength, usually carried around by an animated chair he paid a great deal to have enchanted. A survivor of many wars and assassins attempts, he walks, limping, on a wooden leg, and his left hand has been replaced by an ornately-carved clawed prosthetic of solid Mithral.
Role:
Not exactly sure. Gives some passive skill bonuses, has decent bard type spells. Uses Int + Wis for melee attacks, Wis for AC and Cha for saves—and takes no effects on a successful Will, Fort, or Reflex save. (Originally was going to use Cha + Wis for AC and saves, but this felt too gimmicky)
Bio:
Born to one of Taldor’s ancient noble families, Marion Rook was the second son of a second son, destined to inherit none of the wealth or land of a family spread too thin to support yet another nobleman. Along with a few cousins and squires, he was sent off at a young age to fight and die in glorious battle at the Mendevian Crusades—but this failed to produce the desired effect, and so the young knight was enlisted in a variety of unusual mercenary companies, journeying from Garund to Vudra as he learned to fight with any weapons available. While he was not especially strong or tough, the young Marion was a quick learner, skilled at patience and self-perception, and possessed a remarkable ability to dodge, block, or shrug off nearly any attack. Eventually, his talents brought him to religion—and Marion joined a company of holy warriors of Irori, the god of self-perfection and pursuit of knowledge.
That was, of course, over fifty years ago. As the Empire continued to crumble, House Rook found itself surrounded by enemies, and one by one, the young Sir Marion’s family were killed off in duels, plagues, assassinations and wars, until the holy warrior received a letter asking him to return home immediately before his estates were forfeit. Reluctant to go, he found himself convinced by an older, wiser priest—something was rotten in the State of Taldor, and though the fighting and religious practices he had learned would be strange at home, his native land needed all the valiant truth-seekers and champions of law and order it could get. And so at the age of thirty-five he returned, as the new Lord Rook, to his family home and lands in ruin.
Over the next decades, the oft-nicknamed Lord “Inkwell” Rook became known for his steadfast refusal to become involved in wars or feuds, using persuasion, forgery and spycraft to always remain on the side of the royal family. Eventually, he was even made Spymaster to Stavian II for a brief time, though upon the Prince’s death he spent most of his time at home, gathering relics, building up his estates, and raising a family. Still, his wealth and power earned him frequent enemies, and Lord Rook acquired a reputation for foiling and humiliating would-be assassins in creative ways.
Now, after over forty years in Oppara, his children are all grown, with children of their own. No longer needed to save his family or manage his lands, the octogenarian Lord Rook, commonly rumored to be immune to death, has set his sights once more on the royal court, looking for a way to use his influence in fixing a corrupt nation.
Cohort: Doctor Janus of Nex
Alchemist 13 (Visionary Researcher)
Description:
A muscular, middle-aged Garundi man. As Lord Rook’s personal physician, he follows him around, carries him, or medicates him as needed, while also pursuing his own affairs most of the time.
Role:
Noncombatant healer, who can produce helpful infusions and transferrable mutagens for party members.
Bio:
A young alchemist’s apprentice born in Oenopion, Janus was rescued by Lord Rook at a young age from bandits who had killed his master. When the latter returned to Taldor, he brought the boy with him, buying him books to continue his studies and employing him as a general family doctor and expert in alchemical imports.
I am absolutely loving Lord Inkwell!
Note though, that you and your cohort are only 12th level.
Also, way to abuse those "use everything but physical stats" abilities. lol!
It's an amusing concept (I think he's mostly a pastiche of Doran Martell and Lord Vetinari), but the character would work much better in Ascending Majesty, while Sir Darren Carter would still be more fun in Reviving the Empire (and, I suspect, the two characters would have nothing in common).
Hmm, not sure. I'd have to think up a whole new (two new) characters. I'll consider it. Will that have an effect on this game?
Please join me over here abouts for the discussion on how the second game will be handled. Chiefly, IF you are joining the second game, lets remove our clutter from GM LG's thread:
@CommandoDude, I don't anticipate it being an issue.
What's the time table for this campaign? We've got 3 players ready to go, what about the fifth?
Congrats on the wedding, of course!
Meanwhile, I think everyone still has their characters for this one—just let us know when you feel well enough to start again.
Hey-o!
Just poking in here to say that I'm planning on starting my game on Saturday (Pending no issues).
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Hi everyone!
As I may have mentioned before my wedding is just a few days away and I'm in the middle of chasing loose ends and getting everything sorted for the big day!
That being said I'm going to be superly crunched for time at this point! Please feel free to DMPC me for the time being if needed!
If I have a moment in the next few days to drop a post I will try!
Between the wedding and honeymoon I am going to be in limbo until June 23rd, but I promise you all, I will be back!
Ascending Majesty has officially started.
Haven't heard from Sanguinus lately, I sent him a text a while back, but never got a response.