Rise of the Runelords Redux

Game Master Loup Blanc

Greetings one and all! Welcome to the game, and I hope you enjoy your time here. This will be our Discussion thread for talking about things out of character; I'd ask that most if not all questions and commentary be posted here, so the Gameplay thread doesn't get muddled with out-of-character stuff.

For the moment, please just check in and let me know you're here, and introduce yourselves to one another. I don't know that any members of the party would necessarily know one another, and a couple are just arriving in Sandpoint shortly before the Swallowtail Festival, but feel free to work out any links that you see and wish to explore. In the meanwhile, I'll double-check sheets and such with a fine-toothed comb, and then we'll get this train moving, hopefully by the weekend.

Checking in for the moment.

Shara's a local, so she could have met anyone else who's been a resident or has been around town for a little bit. She's been back for two to three weeks after graduating from the Stone of the Seers, so anyone who's lived longterm in Magnimar could also have met her while she was living in the city.

Definitely not brainwashed Aasimar Inquisitor, reporting in.

I don't care if we do it here or... well, anywhere really, but I'd love to talk to you about whether or not Uriel is in fact the son (or even descendant) or Ragathiel. He definitely believes he is but he always has inklings of doubt at times, and depending on your thoughts I'll likely change how I play the character. His belief has been re-affirmed somewhat by his visions of Sandpoint under siege by some dark power, but even then he isn't sure if it's because he was destined to be this hero or simply because Ragathiel or one of his servants chose to speak to him. I'm even fine with you coming up with a decision and leaving me in the dark, but either way I'd like to have the discussion at some point.

I have my personal feelings on whether or not it's actually true, but I'm definitely willing to roll with you on this one.

Hey guys, just checking in. I'm in the UK so pretty much heading to bed when I decided to check this!

Thanks Loup and I will post a full introduction tomorrow

Raj here and delighted to be playing with you all. Raj is an out of towner and probably wouldn't know anyone. I'll give the backgrounds a skim to see if something pings but I expect it won't.

Nice to see you back Raj, you played with the same character in my Carrion Crown game for a time.

Looking forward to seeing more of him

Hey JZ! Good to see you again as well! How are things going on your side of the pond?

With me personally, great! How are you doing?

I really do need to catch some ZZZzzz's. Catch up with you all tomorrow

On a similar note, I'm likely going to be working night shifts so I'll probably be posting pretty late nights in our time zone for the summer or possibly even into October.

Hey guys, just checking in. I'm in the UK so pretty much heading to bed when I decided to check this!

Same here!

Gao will have been in town for a while, and might've known those who come to Sandpoint looking for lore, either in the Curious Goblin, or in the inn.

I could also see some interesting interaction between Shara and Gao, him being modest and calm, and her being fashionable and fiery. He's not one to judge, though, but the occasional poke might be happening.

Gao is often doing odd jobs around town, so most of those who are natives or have spent some time in Sandpoint might've seen the Tian man buzz around with a grin, and struck a conversation, if they're the conversationalist type.

I need to sleep to refresh my daily amount of wisdom, so until morning!

With me personally, great! How are you doing?

Things are going pretty well in RL... minus the perpetual headache caused by the dumpster fire that is US politics. Enough said there.

I am glad to get a chance to play with you on the other side of the DM screen. :)

Go Swansea!

Matoska checking in. Very excited to play with you all. Matoska hasn't been in town for very long so its unlikely he'd know you guys. Despite being Aasimar he's the son of shoanti barbarians, his clan being particularly xenophobic so my intention was to play him as a bit of a dick at first. If the slightly racist undertones would bother anyone let me know and ill channel his Neutral good and skip the dick phase.

@Uriel I have no problem if you want to be the son of Raganthiel. Matoska probably won't believe him but will be happy to verbally spar him about the issue.

@Gao: Shara was childhood friends with Ameiko and visits her at the inn sometimes, and I noticed in your write-up that Gao frequents the Dragon, so I can totally see them having met and had a few discussions. She's not exactly the type to do much other than roll her eyes at koan type wisdom, but she respects people who embrace knowledge and learning. Also, it's kind of funny but they're basically polar opposites in build too. Gao fights with his fists and uses spells that buff him. Shara fights with a polearm to stay at a distance and focuses on blasting spells.

Deiniol Sylvir wrote:

With me personally, great! How are you doing?

Things are going pretty well in RL... minus the perpetual headache caused by the dumpster fire that is US politics.

Eyyyy.

As for knowing anyone in town, it's unlikely that anyone would know of Uriel unless they're from/spent a lot of time in Magnimar. He has only recently arrived in town although he's probably staying at the Dragon. He's... not easy to miss. You might have seen him and wonder what someone like him is doing in Sandpoint, but it's not likely he's really spoken to anyone.

@Rajuna

Don't be too upset about your dumpster fire, Canada has its very own one as well. Ours' claim to fame is getting elected for his hair and falling down stairs as a party trick. Im still not convinced you have the worst deal.

Rajuna Two-Fangs wrote:

... minus the perpetual headache caused by the dumpster fire that is US politics.

Eyyyy.

Just to be clear, I wasn't being partisan. Regardless of where one falls on the political spectrum, I think it's fair to call it a dumpster fire... What specifically makes it a 'debacle' depends on your political leaning, but very few Americans are saying things are just fine.

[/political talk]

In the meanwhile, I'll double-check sheets and such with a fine-toothed comb, and then we'll get this train moving, hopefully by the weekend.

If it would make your task easier, Loup, I could mail you my HeroLab file. Just PM me an email addy and I'll send the file along.

Deiniol Sylvir wrote:

With me personally, great! How are you doing?

Things are going pretty well in RL... minus the perpetual headache caused by the dumpster fire that is US politics. Enough said there.

I am glad to get a chance to play with you on the other side of the DM screen. :)

Go Swansea!

Man... 12 hour outage on the boards today. Not fun :(

But yeah looking forward to this and to playing with you guys.

Uriel Leveton; "Blade-Bearer" wrote:

Rajuna Two-Fangs wrote:

... minus the perpetual headache caused by the dumpster fire that is US politics.

Eyyyy.

Just to be clear, I wasn't being partisan. Regardless of where one falls on the political spectrum, I think it's fair to call it a dumpster fire... What specifically makes it a 'debacle' depends on your political leaning, but very few Americans are saying things are just fine.

[/political talk]

Look, we have a Prime Minister who wasn't elected and no effective opposition here in the UK so count yourselves lucky :)

But it seems quite early to be talking about politics so back to the game. I need to make a couple of tweaks and I also have a question for Loup;

Also, when do you intend to begin the game in earnest?

Uriel Leveton; "Blade-Bearer" wrote:

Rajuna Two-Fangs wrote:

... minus the perpetual headache caused by the dumpster fire that is US politics.

Eyyyy.

Just to be clear, I wasn't being partisan. Regardless of where one falls on the political spectrum, I think it's fair to call it a dumpster fire... What specifically makes it a 'debacle' depends on your political leaning, but very few Americans are saying things are just fine.

[/political talk]

Actually, I wasn't either. It's just a shit show.

Also, just out of curiosity, what are everyone's builds going for? I figure with gestalt we can get some pretty crazy stuff going on, so making sure we aren't overlapping with each other a ton is a good idea. Uriel is going to end up being focused on Intimidate along with a LOT of focused damage. In addition, he's picking up feats to be a Mage Slayer. He's got the Spellbreaker archetype and my Fighter levels will make it easy to pick up the feats needed to keep them threatened and on their toes. He'll also been getting mundane flight through the Aasimar feat, so I'll be in the air quite a bit. He has no real way to attack or defend at range, however.

As a monk and barbarian, I was also thinking of acting as a mage killer. My rage powers were going to focus on resisting or breaking magic. I'm probably going to end up taking a few feats geared towards maneuvers as well. Grappling for out hanging fliers and either disarm and trip (probably disarm since everyone takes trip) I am going to take the dragon style feats for extra damage and will likely chose style strikes geared towards imposing penalties. So damage and mage killing plus limited debuffing/locking down for me.

Gao is going for a single-target damage dealing, and will most likely be focusing on the transmutation and abjuration schools, with some dips in divination.

My character (still not happy with his name so will change that shortly) is primarily going to be skill based. HIs spell lists from Psychic Detective and Magus will provide a lot of versatility as well as skill unlocks to supplement it.

He will be no slouch in single-target combat between spellstrike and studied target but I think he's likely to be a support striker more than true front line because he doesn't have a huge amount of hit points.

In addition, aside from spells, he won't have much in the way of ranged attacking prowess either.

I'm going for a more generalized build. Raj will have a broad range of skills with the usual rogue highlights. He'll be a strong infiltrator, scout, spy, and assassin. He'll be a good flanking buddy with strong sneak attacks. For his Inquisitor half, I'll be sure to favor healing magic (since we don't have a lot of that) and I'll pick teamwork feats that shore up any weaknesses we may have as a group in addition to ones that let us team up to nasty effect.

JZ, I glanced at Deiniol and it seems like he may be angling to be Master of Traps. If you'd prefer to hold that title alone, let me know and I'll make sure I don't steal your thunder in that regard.

I'm going for a more generalized build. Raj will have a broad range of skills with the usual rogue highlights. He'll be a strong infiltrator, scout, spy, and assassin. He'll be a good flanking buddy with strong sneak attacks. For his Inquisitor half, I'll be sure to favor healing magic (since we don't have a lot of that) and I'll pick teamwork feats that shore up any weaknesses we may have as a group in addition to ones that let us team up to nasty effect.

JZ, I glanced at Deiniol and it seems like he may be angling to be Master of Traps. If you'd prefer to hold that title alone, let me know and I'll make sure I don't steal your thunder in that regard.

I'm not precious about that Raj. I get trapfinding anyway and certain magical effects will help but it's always worth having a second pair of eyes :)

Cool. I'm pretty much of the same mind. I'd rather have overlapping skill sets - nothing is more annoying than having the 'expert' utterly tank his skill roll when you are fighting that nasty BBEG with a stack of immunities. :)

Cool. I'm pretty much of the same mind. I'd rather have overlapping skill sets - nothing is more annoying than having the 'expert' utterly tank his skill roll when you are fighting that nasty BBEG with a stack of immunities. :)

"He who carries a weapon sheathed is a wise one. He who carries two is wiser."

Sounds like we're all more or less front line fighters so far. I wont have the best AC in the world but my HP should help to compensate for that. Rajuna let me know what type of teamwork feats you want to grab as i may take a few as well if they're compatible with my build. Like most of you i wont be great at ranged combat but have bow proficiency and decent dex, so i wont suck if there are fliers too high up to grab or far away important targets.

"He who carries a weapon sheathed is a wise one. He who carries two is wiser."

Raj nods sagely, then offers a vulpine smile. "I carry three blades... what's that say about me?"

Hmm sounds like im pretty unwise then. I have a bow and a glove with a knife on it.

Regarding build (sorry, haven't been able to get on most of today), Shara's really supposed to be a blaster focused on dealing a lot of damage and hitting wide areas mixed with battlefield control with walls, pits, and disabling spells. Standard tactics are throwing around fireballs, various cones and blasts, and separating and disabling priority targets with control spells so we can peel encounters apart piece by piece. Buffs will mostly be stuff to make her more efficient in combat.

Her Fighter levels are more about making her survive longer when she needs to get in close, but she'd much rather have a more dedicated combat character between her and the bad guys.

Outside of combat, she's good at Knowledge and Social skills and that's about it. I don't think we have much of a party face yet, so she can take that up, in which case I'll put a bit more focus into Charisma and social skills. I also plan to take some enchantment spells to help with that kind of thing, as well as possibly working intimidate into my combat tricks.

I think your Diplo is fine, +7 is quite respectable. Someone else has a +5 as well, I think. We're practically an international Toastmasters group! :p

That's great Shara, we definitely need some face skills.

I considered taking the Student of Philosophy trait to get intelligence to diplomacy, but I figured (changed name) Efanydd (ee-van-ith or Evan for short) is going to be fairly obnoxious/superior/infuriating so diplomacy really didn't feel like his schtik.

Actually, the fact that we get deadly aim as a combat option means that most of us are at least passable archers so if it came to it we could volley pretty effectively as a team.

Actually, the fact that we get deadly aim as a combat option means that most of us are at least passable archers so if it came to it we could volley pretty effectively as a team.

That's a pretty good point that I had forgotten about. In my head my ranged attack was gonna be an acrobatic leap unto enemies and grappling them to the ground. A volley of arrows will be considerably easier if not quite as cool.

As I small aside I realized that when I added my backstory the forum must have timed out as my backstory wasn't there. Its up now if anyone cares to read it.

A +7 is decent at 1st level. I do like playing face characters though, so it's no really stretch to make it work for me. And a few of my abilities scale of Cha since I'm an arcanist, so I can afford to put some resources into boosting it mechanically too. Though Int needs to be the priority because I cast off Int and all.

Rajuna could actually be decent at Diplomacy too, if he had room to put ranks in it, but he seems more a Bluff and Intimidate kind of guy instead of Diplomacy. And having all the roguish sneaky skills is rather skill point intensive.

EDIT: Nice backstory for Matoska. He's going to really, really hate the goblins when they show up, isn't he?

Efanydd Sylvir wrote:

Actually, the fact that we get deadly aim as a combat option means that most of us are at least passable archers so if it came to it we could volley pretty effectively as a team.

That's a pretty good point that I had forgotten about. In my head my ranged attack was gonna be an acrobatic leap unto enemies and grappling them to the ground. A volley of arrows will be considerably easier if not quite as cool.

As I small aside I realized that when I added my backstory the forum must have timed out as my backstory wasn't there. Its up now if anyone cares to read it.

Well that's definitely more stylish. But given that we are mostly considering our options against flying enemies, even a lack of precise shot wouldn't be a huge deal to most of us. It's a lot easier to build a switch hitter with these house rules because so much of the heavy lifting is already done for you (free power attack/deadly aim etc) leaving feats free for other uses.

Nice backstory for Matoska. He's going to really, really hate the goblins when they show up, isn't he?

Thank you, and yeah he's gonna hate them.

A +7 is decent at 1st level. I do like playing face characters though, so it's no really stretch to make it work for me. And a few of my abilities scale of Cha since I'm an arcanist, so I can afford to put some resources into boosting it mechanically too. Though Int needs to be the priority because I cast off Int and all.

Rajuna could actually be decent at Diplomacy too, if he had room to put ranks in it, but he seems more a Bluff and Intimidate kind of guy instead of Diplomacy. And having all the roguish sneaky skills is rather skill point intensive.

I can certainly allocate points periodically to Diplo to back you up. My first Stat bump will go to INT which will give me a few more points to play with. But Raj isn't a face character per se. He's socially reserved and his MO is to go relatively unnoticed. That said, I'm willing to throw some resources to Diplo so you can stay a bit more focused on boosting your class-related skills.I'll just have to use Raj as a 'quiet influencer'.

Rajuna let me know what type of teamwork feats you want to grab as i may take a few as well if they're compatible with my build.

I get the first teamwork feat at 3rd level, so we have time to figure out what would be good. My plan was to see how we all gel in combat and then determine what teamwork feat would work well.

I can certainly allocate points periodically to Diplo to back you up. My first Stat bump will go to INT which will give me a few more points to play with. But Raj isn't a face character per se. He's socially reserved and his MO is to go relatively unnoticed. That said, I'm willing to throw some resources to Diplo so you can stay a bit more focused on boosting your class-related skills.I'll just have to use Raj as a 'quiet influencer'.

Yeah, that's what I meant to say, he can do it mechanically, it just doesn't seem like the kind of thing that fits him. Don't stress about it, I can manage face skills fine. My high Int means that I'll have plenty of skill ranks to throw around by the time we hit mid game.

It's... a bit of a ways off (unless Loup allows me to take it earlier) but as soon as it's available I'm going to take Angelic Wings and Uriel will be able to fly to deal with other flying enemies. I would love to have it available before 10th level since Angelic Blood is the other prerequisite beyond race. In fact, the goal is he'll be a pretty good flier and can deal with aerial threats.

Shara will probably be support for that. Fly is only a third level spell and Overland Flight is fifth, so I'll get it around the time you get your wings. Plus raining fireballs and meteors from above is awesome for a blaster caster.

Gao has +5 to Diplomacy, which isn't too horrible for someone with negative Cha. Skills-wise, though, he's not going to be a lot of help, unless we're talking knowledges. Comes with being a 4+Int class, and no Int Synergy. However, he'll be quite good at Knowledges, due to his Archetype.

Speaking of archery, I should pick up some Shuriken. I think I haven't done my items yet. Not that Monkcerers need items, but, hey.

EDIT:

Perspicacious Gao wrote:

"He who carries a weapon sheathed is a wise one. He who carries two is wiser."

Raj nods sagely, then offers a vulpine smile. "I carry three blades... what's that say about me?"

Gao nods, pondering in the distance, before staring the man in the eye. "That you have a contingency plan.", he grins.

Matoska can hit people in the face really hard. That's a face skill right?

Uriel only has Intimidate for a face-like skill, but he's really good at it. He's also a walking lie detector for when we need that sort of thing. I've got knowledge skills to identify monsters since I need that for Bane, and I've got a couple other useful things. In particular, one of my Background skills is Linguistics as I need it for all the Litany spells. So, I can translate into quite a few languages down the line. That about accounts for my skill selection as although I've got a lot of skill points my Intelligence isn't great.

Shara will probably be support for that. Fly is only a third level spell and Overland Flight is fifth, so I'll get it around the time you get your wings. Plus raining fireballs and meteors from above is awesome for a blaster caster.

Efan will also be able to fly from level 5. We should be able to cover most eventualities between us I think.

Matoska also has a kickass sense motive, and gets a few knowledge skills, but monk and barbarian don't exactly have the best skills in the world. Nothing to write home about in any case.I could probably be great at intimidate if I got strength on it but I'm not fond of the idea personally so ill leave the intimidate checks to my betters.

We should be able to cover most eventualities between us I think.

Yeah I gotta say I think we're pretty well rounded all things considered.

Can I just ask where everyone is? Just so I know time zones and expected posting periods I guess :)

I'm in Swansea, UK

My apologies for my absence here--I tried to check in yesterday, but the site wasn't working at the time. That said, I'm going to be absent a little while longer: my great-grandmother passed away a couple days ago, and family is dealing with that. As part of it some relatives I haven't seen in a while are visiting, and with everything going on I don't think I'll have a lot of time to post this weekend. I know the timing sucks, and I wish it weren't so, but it is what it is. I'm very hopeful to get things rolling by Monday, though!

Rajuna, to answer your build questions quickly--no double-dipping an ability score, and you just lose the Escape Judgment. (It's not that big a hit, considering what you're gaining instead, and you're already fantastic at Stealth. Holy sh*t, the Heretic is a good archetype for sneaky inquisitors...)

First, I'm sorry to hear about your great-grandma. No explanation necessary on your schedule for the weekend. We'll manage without an update.

Second, thanks for the answers. I was quite sure about the double-dip thing but I had to run it past you. I've seen a couple DMs allow that kind of thing... which makes me blink, hard. The Escape Judgement is no great loss. It's very situational and more than a fair trade-off for all the other goodies. Heretic + Infiltrator = Nasty

Third, Efan and team, I'm in Brooklyn NY where the motto is "Hey! Yougottaproblemwit'that?"