hey everyone, I'm excited to have been selected and looking forward to getting started. sadly, I'm finishing up a final paper right now for my grad school class... I should be around some tomorrow to start discussing stuff.
@GM- I will still need an answer on that transformative question (posted in the recruitment thread). thank you!
Hey guys! Good to be playing with you. I just wanna say my posting times are gonna be a little weird. I live in Japan, see.
3 questions from Mathpro before I head off to work.
1) I'd imagine all the ogres and nastiness in Hook Mountain would bind a group together in a "we were in a foxhole together" kind of way.
2) Haven't looked too close at the other characters yet.
3) See previous answer. I deliberately left Zaphkiel's background vague to be able to adapt it to other people's ideas though.
I don't know much about the AP. Something about goblins and ogres and Ameiko gets kidnapped and a murderer?
Also, I never rolled my HP.
Taking average (5) on the 4, 2, 2, and 1 makes +1+3+3+4=+11=123 HP.
Zaph, am I correct in thinking that you're stats don't reflect your belt?
nice rolls by the way, with your monster Con you'll actually have more HP than I do, lol. (Thankfully you'll probably be slower so I might actually be able to get off an AoO or two before you charge into the fray)
Baldric I will research it today and see if I can't come up with an answer for you. My gut reaction is a standard action but I want to double check with more knowledgeable people so I don't screw you out of actions.
If I were GMing I'd probably require a standard action too (I believe the magic item rules say that's the default for activating items), I just thought I'd ask since the description is so vague.
Alright, one last question about transformative... If my weapon is 2 handed I can transform it into a bastard sword, right? It's a two-handed martial weapon so I'm assuming that works... If not I may need to juggle my weapon(s) some, but otherwise I'm done with all my permanent gear- I have about 10k set aside for wands/scrolls but wanted to check with the casters before i spent that.
Just quickly stopping by
Idea behind L&W. Very similar to LoL
One of the party members died. But something
happened. Soul gets torn in two. One of a small
lamb like girl. The other a fiery wolf like beast. Flames enveloping what looks like the skeleton form of a large wolf.
Welcome to help flesh out what happened there.
Baldric: Indeed I did, and yeah, dex is a dump stat for the guy with two-weapon fighting. This will be glorious. HP is 155. For the healbot. Oh yes.
Ok, from here on out, I'm just spitballing.
Shayliss: it could be interesting if there is a little Shayless, and it was whomever L+W used to be's child and it was meant to be a serious relationship. How does a relationship continue after the death and partial resurrection of one person, to say nothing of being transformed into an... incarnation of cosmic duality? A yin yang symbol with too many legs? Something like that. I don't know if the adventurer currently known as Lamb&Wolf was male before though.
If that's a no-go, Iozif has the best CHA, making him an obvious contender. If we decide Zaphkiel was the target of her affections, it's not like he's taken a vow of chastity, but he probably would have turned her down, trying to be gentle about it but accidentally insulting her.
L+W: Maybe magical healing/resurrection gone awry? Zaphkiel is basically a walking religious studies class in a world where religion gives you superpowers, so if s/he was cut down in combat the Zaph would totally go "ok, when Baron Twice-Blessed was killed by the orcs at Malgan'acht Hold, Father Jerome the Baptist, Friar of Iomedae lit the candles thusly and uttered Canticle 9-17 while burning this kind of incense..." basically plagarising a resurrection spell, which would obviously be beyond the powers of a warpriest to do, especially at that level.
Aldern: maybe that's when L&W died? Being the target of a semi-ghoul's obsession will do that if you're unlucky.
If we're running with the idea that L&W's former self was our friend/companion and we're all sort of dealing with the fall-out of what happened, i'd like to really lean into that (assuming L&W is down for all this)...
What if he was a bard and taught Iozif the songs and abilities that he (Iozif) now carries on in his lost friend's memory? That would make him (the deceased) an even more obvious match for Shayliss...
I'm not actually proficient in shields (which doesn't matter with the one I have because it has 0 ACP), but maybe the whole reason I started carrying this one was because it was his?
@Zaph- out of curiosity, how are you taking 2WF? ACG says "The warpriest must meet the prerequisites for these feats" about your bonus feats...
3 original questions
1) I think I'm with Zaph on this one... I don't think we need a lot of specifics if we can all adopt the mindset that every other person in the party has saved our life at least once before.
2) I like the idea of L&W's former self having been the object of Aldern's obsession (maybe even that being how he died); I think that jealousy over his relationship with Shayliss could make for a compelling motivation for all that.
3) Baldric has some specific background stuff that makes him a little less flexible in terms being relatives and stuff like that. I could see a little bit of a friendly rivalry between him and Zaph though (especially given that he's called 'the strong' and Baldric is as strong or stronger than him )
one final thing- would it be possible to open the gameplay thread? if we all post and then delete our posts the thread will still be empty until you're ready to start but the game will show up in our campaign tabs (which is super helpful for those of us involved in multiple games).
Wow. Ok. How did I miss that even baseline TWF has a dex requirement. Total brain fart on my part. So now that I just rewrote my character's combat style entirely because I wasn't thinking clearly before, Zaphkiel is now a mounted menace.
"The Strong" is an epithet that he got stuck with by the Mystery Cult community that raised him (they're big on ceremony and epithet naming and stuff, and a big muscleman isn't really the stereotype) rather than something he goes by and insists everyone call him. And wow, I only added +2 instead of 4. I need to stop doing this as I'm on my way out the door to go to work.
Lol- that was a close call... I posted in gameplay and then got called into the doctor's office (regular checkup for my son), and when I got out and went to deleted it I only had 3 minutes left...
Honeymoon. So dropping in now and then. When signal allows it
Love all the ideas
male bard. Had a kid. Jealous ghoul killed him. Tried to bring him back. But half second too late. Witnessed his soul get torn in 2. And now youre stuck with a very odd pair. Each have traits of your bard friend.
Sounds like congratulations are in order.
Thanks =^^=
How would Zaphkiel have reacted to L+W's death...
Obviously he tried to rez him, making him the being he is today. Having done that, I think Zaph would have doubled down, trying his damndest to find a way to "fix" his mistake, as well as getting extremely "penance-y". Not self-mutilation or anything gross, but even compared to his previously pious self he has become seriously obsessed with redemptive qualities of faith and self-purification.
Given a library or archives he'll probably try to research a way to fuse the two back together or something but Zaphkiel is no wizard, so it's probably not gonna work. Given that, he probably is working to gather enough favor to get the gods to do it for him. In the meantime, he's moody and extremely reckless with himself, thinking whatever pain or injury he suffers are penance for his foolhardiness in trying to use magic he shouldn't have.
Baldric's training was sort of geared towards working in a private army or as personal security for wealthy/powerful people. As a result he has a very protective instinct towards those he feels responsible for. He's not the type to carry around a lot of guilt but he does see their bard friend's death as a failure, and feels even more protective of L&W as a result. He also has some unspoken concern that he may need to protect his friend Zaph from the unhealthy obsession with fixing things with L&W that seems to have taken root.
Also, we have 0 full casters... My UMD is decent, so I can help fill in some of what we would normally get from them, and summoner and warpriest can fairly easily pick up some slack with the right scrolls, but we should think about what we want to do as a party to keep us stocked with those kinds of disposable items. I budgeted about 10k for that kind of stuff and am definitely open to other people's input on what specifically to buy. Anyone else doing that? Moving forward do we want to have some kind party fund for that?
Was wondering. When again did we say their unfortunate accident/seperation taken place? Recently? Or just before they go back?
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I was thinking it would have happened just before the end of the second book, if we're going with Foxglove killing Luthian.
That does put us in the position of having at least gone to all the places in book 3 with L+W, which means some of us have probably gotten over the initial shock of "oh gods, Luthian is dead" and the rush that undoubtedly comes from finding yourself in the middle of Deliverance with ogres meaning we suddenly find ourselves with some downtime, at least until war shows up on our doorstep and the Runelords Rise. This seems like an appropriate time for us all to suddenly have it "hit" us that we're traveling with what may be a creature that's utterly unique in the entire multiverse, constructed from the dead soul of a companion and a friend. Reactions to the moral, religious, and personal implications of that abound.
I think it would help if we had more details about the personalities of L+W. Is Wolf like an actual animal or does he speak? Is Lamb soft and meek like the name implies? How do they feel about Luthian? Do they have his memories? How do they feel about Shayliss?
Thanks to Zaphkiel for taking such an active lead in this. Really satisfied with your creative direction.
Aw, shucks.
Okay. I like that, t he "only sinking in/hitting us now
Lamb
Calm. Friendly. (Even if her intimidate is high. I blame it on Wolf). She likes stories. Beauty.
She is LN. (Luthian as a Bard)
Wolf
Aggressive. Angry. Rash. Zealous. Hungry. Always hungry. He is CN (Luthian as a Warrior)
They both are hunters. They hunt those who are about to die. Think of them as a Reaper as a whole. Lamb is kind. Easy. Soft death. Wolf is wild and vicioys. Violent death.
Yes. He can speak any language Lamb can. Since they are one in the same.
They do have some of his memories. But they are what one would call dream memories
Side note:
She does "diplomacy" but due to Wolf, it will always be "Intimidate" she always uses his size modifier to intimidate. (TRAIT)
Lamb: Please be so kind as to let us pass
Wolf: Yes. Please (shows his large teeth filled smile)
*rolls intimidate*
On shayless
What if you still have the body with you?
They will remember her somewhat. But as previously stated. Dreamlike recognistion
L+W will each interact differently towards her though. Lamb might see her as a possible friend. Wolf will see her as lover. Each with their own problems and roleplay opportunities
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If Luthian died at the end of book 2 it seems unlikely that we'd still be carrying his body around... IIRC there's some down time between book 2 and book 3, so we probably would have brought the body back to Shayliss... unless a guilt stricken Zaph has it stuffed in a bag of holding and is casting gentle repose on it every week or so in the hopes that he might eventually be able to use it to 'fix' what happened...
Either way, Shayliss should probably already be aware of the situation (and had some time while we were gone to decide how she wants to interact with L&W, what she's going to tell their child, etc...
They probably would have brought the body back to bury him, it's only like 15 miles back to Sandpoint.
Ok, I think Zaphkiel thinks of them as incomplete people, and isn't too concerned with their identities, thinking of them as objects that need to be put back into place so his friend's soul can be repaired. Let's expand that to say that Zaphkiel and Luthian were close, which is part of the reason he tried too hard.
Re: moving skill points- Baldric is pretty decent with a couple knowledges too if you want to consider that at all...
Re: Nualia and Barl- Baldric has a saying, "better to make a corpse than an enemy, but better still to make an ally." So, he's/I'm all for killing them if they're going to continue to be a threat but if there's a real possibility of turning them into trustworthy allies he's all for it.
Whats fun about this character... they will mostly always vote both ways. 1 for save/redeem. 1 for kill/destroy. Yet they never argue. =^^=
The burning of the body sounds very thematic! The body gets burnt up. The flames form Wolf. The smoke formed Lamb. Inbetweem the twisting and taring of a soul.
Want to make it traumatic for those involved by adding sound effects to the soul? Or is that too much? =^^=
Perform (sing/oratory) both will be good. Since i see luthian being a story teller bard. If you want to have a keepsake? Maybe you have his story compendium? All the stories he had collected over time? Like Bilbo's journal?
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A hunt worthy of the story book!!
Tell me little Lamb, what are ours to take?
All things, my dear Wolf
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Yeah, and some details about who they are and stuff.
As I mentioned before, Baldric is a trained soldier from a very old military academy... He appreciates the tactical benefits of gaining allies, but in combat situations his default will be to use deadly force unless there's a clear reason not to. All that is to say that anything that's aggressive towards us he'll be all for killing unless one of you pushes for another course (so anything 'truly evil' is most likely dead).
Both L&W would kill if the creature/person is on the brink of death. They way they do it depends on the person
If they surrender then it would depend on the person. Wolf would like a hunt. Where as Lamb prefers a non violent end
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So after poking around online, I've found three main villains that seem hypothetically redeemable. There's Barl Breakbones, a giant who leads the ogres that are fought in book three, and ultimately worked for our main antagonist in book 4. There's Nualia, an absolute woobie and aasimar who was the daughter of the priest and was abused by high expectations on account of being an aasimar. Something that I think Zaphkiel can definitely relate to, so I vote Nualia was saved on account of finally meeting someone who gets it. The next one I found was Tsuto, Ameiko Kaijutsu's brother. He's kind of crazy, but if Nualia is redeemable, I think Tsuto could be as well.
As far as redeeming in principle, Zaphkiel wouldn't shy away from issuing field justice if he's in a position where he has the authority to or absolutely has to. War comes before priest after all. If they surrender or he thinks they're just lashing out, he might try to talk to them, but he's Zaphkiel the Strong, not Zaphkiel the Charming.