Ruins of Pathfinder: The Mysterium Compact (Mythic) (Inactive)

Game Master Robert Brookes

“Nothing is yet in its true form.”

                                      -C.S. Lewis
 
Current Location: Ancient Ossuary


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Robert Brookes wrote:
@Taeo Oneshape: Phenomenal. One thing I didn't see in the background and is something you should consider, is Taeo's concept of death. Creatures native to the First World do not (typically) die permanently there. They'll die, then be reconstituted some time later. They have no sense of permanency of death and do not take it seriously. It's up to you how Taeo has interacted with that, and how that colors his perceptions of death on the material plane (if he's even thought about it.)

Thanks! I was thinking about that. I'm assuming that (unlike full fey) Taeo could really die in the First World (rather than reconstituting) and that he's truly raisable on either plane (unlike the fey who die permanently when not in the First World). Are these assumptions correct as far as Taeo knows?

By the way, this also relates to the fact (noted only in my profile stats) that he doesn't worship a god, as he's been raised in a realm that is largely ignored by the gods, and by semi-immortal beings who will never have a divine afterlife. I don't honestly know how his relation to religion will evolve as he spends time on the material plane, but I'm sure it will.

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gyrfalcon wrote:
Robert Brookes wrote:
@Taeo Oneshape: Phenomenal. One thing I didn't see in the background and is something you should consider, is Taeo's concept of death. Creatures native to the First World do not (typically) die permanently there. They'll die, then be reconstituted some time later. They have no sense of permanency of death and do not take it seriously. It's up to you how Taeo has interacted with that, and how that colors his perceptions of death on the material plane (if he's even thought about it.)

Thanks! I was thinking about that. I'm assuming that (unlike full fey) Taeo could really die in the First World (rather than reconstituting) and that he's truly raisable on either plane (unlike the fey who die permanently when not in the First World). Are these assumptions correct as far as Taeo knows?

By the way, this also relates to the fact (noted only in my profile stats) that he doesn't worship a god, as he's been raised in a realm that is largely ignored by the gods, and by semi-immortal beings who will never have a divine afterlife. I don't honestly know how his relation to religion will evolve as he spends time on the material plane, but I'm sure it will.

That assumption sounds pretty good, yeah. I think it'll be interesting to see how that develops over the course of the game. On the point of religion, that also makes perfect sense. While religion itself isn't a strong aspect of Mysterium Compact, one specific religion will (in spite of the setting being in atheistic Rahadoum) have significant story impact.


Great, knowing that he's retained his parents' mortality helps me think a bit more about what he knows of death, and what he thinks of it. I'll write it up over the next few days.

As an aside about Rahadoum (and atheists in general), I get that it's a place where the decided allying with one god or another carried too high a price. What I don't understand is the practical impact it has on one's afterlife. For example, does a CG Rahdoumi (or other atheist) end up in Elysium when she dies, regardless of her beliefs?


Bobson wrote:
DM Crustypeanut wrote:
Robert Brookes wrote:

Shenhua: Sorry, still picking my jaw up off the floor.

I had the very same reaction with his submission to my Ruins of Pathfinder campaign. XD
I am suddenly very glad I've been lurking here even though I have no intention of submitting a character. It was worth it just to see that submission and realize that things like that exist.

My last two submissions for games have gone unread because I didn't follow the rules for submissions. They told me to make a new character and once I learned to follow the rules, they'd read them.

They said core races with a few exceptions and I turned in a dhampir reskinned as a human and then a Vishkanya reskinned as a cursed human.

One day I will learn.

1. If you say "no samurai or ninja, they won't fit in my campaign" I honestly don't really want to play in your campaign. What you should be saying is, "Asian character concepts don't really fit into my campaign." There is nothing inherently wrong with the classes - a samurai is a cavalier heavily focused on honor. A ninja is a mystic assassin, and surprisingly similar to the PrC.

2. If you say, "Nothing but core classes, everything else is too unbalanced," then I probably don't want to play in that campaign either. Balance is all well and good, but when it is allowed to blanket interfere with a concept, you're probably going to answer every creative solution I come up with by saying, "Yeah, but you can only do such and such with the Bluff/Diplomacy/whatever skill."

3. Lastly, if you say, "You have to do what I say because those are the rules," I really don't want to play with you at all. You are saying that your vision is the only vision allowed into the game. You are also saying that the player is subservient to the DM rather than being partners in a shared experience.

I feel sorry for DMs that hold the top two views. I am offended by DMs with the last one. A good game is one where everyone participates equally, where the totality of our shared vision is better than a story written by only one. Yes, the DM is requesting submissions, and yes, they are ultimately winnowing them down, choosing some and not others. The DM judges the players up front but the players judge the DM once play starts. Neither DMs or Players are of any use without the other.

I guess I should be grateful however. Sure, I wasted 5, 6, 8 or even more hours making a character. I still have that character however, and I had fun doing it. At least they showed me right up front that their game isn't for me.

I want a DM who starts every session thinking "How can I provide my players the best opportunity to shine and have fun." Too many DMs instead go with "How can I keep the players from walking all over my monsters."

Please don't think this is a rant, because I'm not upset at all over this. Every playstyle ever encountered is a valid playstyle, provided every person at the table shares it. The moment where I realize we are not compatible isn't really personal - or if it is, it's not that I'm condemning you or anything.

"The problem isn't about you, baby. It's me, I'm just not ready for this kind of relationship."


DM Jelani wrote:

Cassandra norst The Eclipse (changeling adoptee with teddy bear)

I'm guessing your character concept stemmed from Annie.

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We're right on the same page about a lot of stuff.

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And my random harrow card is.... The Unicorn!


While I can agree with your Viewpoints, MPCampbell.
I also look at the other side of the coin.

Fun of the game is a two way street it has to be fun for both players and GM.
If one player uses a munchkin build it can ruin the fun of the other players, hence why some GMs ban them.
And I find it more fun to make the concept fit with the restrictions,
and ask the GM a few questions to fix a part that can't quite fit given the restrictions.
That and if PCs walk over the GM's monsters, as I player I don't find the game fun as there is no challenge.

Heck, I randomise what I get and work with it to make my concepts.
As it's a good exercise to being resourceful with character concepts given restrictions.


Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber
Garrett Wilson wrote:
DM Jelani wrote:

Cassandra norst The Eclipse (changeling adoptee with teddy bear)

I'm guessing your character concept stemmed from Annie.

Actually no, since i've never played or really looked into league of legends. It's more of a mix of inspirations from my own well-loved stuffed bear as a kid, Bobby who accompanied Melvin in the Teen Titan Episode "Hide and Seek" and the dark part of my mind that watches/plays too many Crime Dramas/Thrillers/Horror things...


Well, great job on the back story. After reading it I started to regret by comparison because Annie's life was nothing like that. Well she does have amazing control over dark magic (as seen by forcing a giant bear on fire to do her bidding and staying in the form of a stuffed animal when not in use) but from what I gathered from the character sheet Patches is nothing like this. It is a manifestation from her mind that she somehow made real when her Uncle tried to do stuff.

Again great back story, and I can only assume that the other back stories are just as good as yours if not better. This is going to be a tough match to see who gets in.


Speaking of inspiration, Taeo Oneshape is (very loosely) inspired by Gene Wolfe's The Wizard Knight diptych. I love the picture he paints of an American boy out of his depths in the realms of Mythgarthr and Aelfrice.

Oh! And Hogwarts is all well and good but the Isle of Roke in LeGuin's Earthsea series will always have a special place in my heart as a school for young wizards.


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DM Jelani wrote:

Garret Wilson The Keep (Half Elf spear guy)

Aemelya The Survivor (Fetchling Orphan)

Zanithane The Lost (Tiefling slave)

Anlessa Kowan The Survivor (Human Runaway)

Alyona Elvanna The Betrayal (Human evil princess)

Yaz The Tangled Briar (Half-orc, raised by orcs)

Vathan The Forge (Aasimar prisoner)

Madai The Twins (Human varisian with imaginary friend)

Cassandra norst The Eclipse (changeling adoptee with teddy bear)

Shen Hua The Dance (Human bastard princess of Tian Ja)

Taeo Oneshape The Joke (Aasimar fey born)

======================

Think I got everyone. Let me know if I missed you or misrepresented your character. I didn't read them all in detail.

Why everyone forget Deriku? Deriku's tears are once again flowing like waterfalls.

@Robert Also, I'm going to polish that backstory up a lot. Same basic idea, just more gooder.


gyrfalcon wrote:

Speaking of inspiration, Taeo Oneshape is (very loosely) inspired by Gene Wolfe's The Wizard Knight diptych. I love the picture he paints of an American boy out of his depths in the realms of Mythgarthr and Aelfrice.

Oh! And Hogwarts is all well and good but the Isle of Roke in LeGuin's Earthsea series will always have a special place in my heart as a school for young wizards.

Tristain Academy of Magic is what I'm thinking of for this campaign... It just feels so right for this campaign. Of course it is possibly going to be darker as the world is literally falling apart but hey I'd rather be at the school than anywhere else.


Robert Brookes wrote:
Deriku: I should have seen this coming from you. I just should have. It looks great, I love the attention to detail with the Shoanti tribe, you nailed all the information and setting; meshed it very well with the Ruins timeline.

Keep in mind that this is Deriku and not Shinoro Nanohana. No crazy snaky harems, no band-saws, no throwing wives out windows even if they deserved it.

I said this in the last post, but I will be working on the backstory for him a bit so that it is cleaner. And with fewer giants maybe, for variety. Maybe a date or two for reference.


Garret Wilson The Keep (Half Elf spear guy)

Aemelya The Survivor (Fetchling Orphan)

Zanithane The Lost (Tiefling slave)

Anlessa Kowan The Survivor (Human Runaway)

Alyona Elvanna The Betrayal (Human evil princess)

Yaz The Tangled Briar (Half-orc, raised by orcs)

Vathan The Forge (Aasimar prisoner)

Madai The Twins (Human varisian with imaginary friend)

Cassandra norst The Eclipse (changeling adoptee with teddy bear)

Shen Hua The Dance (Human bastard princess of Tian Ja)

Taeo Oneshape The Joke (Aasimar fey born)

Deriku The Owl (Shoanti foundling)

-----------------

I like rules, but I also think that there should be no such concept as unbalanced or OP. The DM has total control over the monster's stats. A DM who can't make an encounter challenging isn't being very imaginative. If one player is much more powerful than the others and they have the same point buy/gold as each other, it means the other players need to up their game. The one class that is consistently more powerful than all others are synthesist summoners, but even they don't unbalance a game in my experience. Almost every character concept can built effectively using PF rules.

I totally favor the rule of cool though, which basically says fluff is whatever you want it to be (within reason), just crunch should stay the same. There's no reason to disallow "reskinning".

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Changeling Jack wrote:
Robert Brookes wrote:
Deriku: I should have seen this coming from you. I just should have. It looks great, I love the attention to detail with the Shoanti tribe, you nailed all the information and setting; meshed it very well with the Ruins timeline.

Keep in mind that this is Deriku and not Shinoro Nanohana. No crazy snaky harems, no band-saws, no throwing wives out windows even if they deserved it.

I said this in the last post, but I will be working on the backstory for him a bit so that it is cleaner. And with fewer giants maybe, for variety. Maybe a date or two for reference.

Yeah it's going to take me some time to differentiate the two.

When you date things, the timing on all the failed APs was the year they were released. So, 4706 for Karzoug's release (AP from 2006), 4710 for Carrion Crown (released in 2010), etc.


MPCampbell wrote:
I want a DM who starts every session thinking "How can I provide my players the best opportunity to shine and have fun." Too many DMs instead go with "How can I keep the players from walking all over my monsters."

Thats what I try and do - even if they end up walking over my monsters, as long as they had fun doing so, I'm good. Granted, I do try and make my monsters challenging or - at least - interesting.

With Road to Damnation being my first homebrew campaign since my "Terrorist Paladins reenacting V-for-Vendetta" shenanigans campaign, I'm really aiming to bring each character's strengths and weaknesses into the light so they can use those abilities; Obviously, not everyone can shine everytime, but I aim to make things that are memorable for everyone.

Thats why I was all for allowing your first character submission - even if her Dominion theme was off for the campaign's idea. Which is also why I hooked onto your second submission.. as it fit perfectly.

Anyhoo - I'm going completely out of character for my submission for this campaign. In most of my campaigns I'm generally the L-Something Hard-Ass, what with my LN Commissar for Kagehiro's campaign, my LN pirate-hunter Marine for Rob's Reign of Winter, and my LE mad-doctor vivisectionist for Rob's other campaign.

For this one.. I'm bringing back an incarnation of my very first Pathfinder Character: Gobgob the Goblin. Back in the day, he was a CN Cleric of Calistra. Yeah. A goblin. XD Obviously, he's going to be a Summoner this time.. but.. I think I'll be bringing back his overarching personality.

He also might have a mild case of schizophrenia. Guess where his Eidolons (plural) are coming from? :D


Robert Brookes wrote:

Yeah it's going to take me some time to differentiate the two.

When you date things, the timing on all the failed APs was the year they were released. So, 4706 for Karzoug's release (AP from 2006), 4710 for Carrion Crown (released in 2010), etc.

Deriku was the poor dead kid son of a b~~$! that Shinoro pretended to be so people would not know that he was a general for an undead-spewing fiend-king. That guy's probably living it up in Ustalav.

The Backstory has been polished, and the Personality has also received a cursory buff.


Kana wrote:
@Robert Opps, i did. I saw his first one and knew he revised it and apparently overlooked the revised version. Sorry Madai!

Madai forgives you but Kiera is furious :-)


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Speaker for the Dead wrote:
Kana wrote:
@Robert Opps, i did. I saw his first one and knew he revised it and apparently overlooked the revised version. Sorry Madai!
Madai forgives you but Kiera is furious :-)

Oh no! This can't be good!


Azure_Zero wrote:

While I can agree with your Viewpoints, MPCampbell.

I also look at the other side of the coin.

Fun of the game is a two way street it has to be fun for both players and GM.
If one player uses a munchkin build it can ruin the fun of the other players, hence why some GMs ban them.
And I find it more fun to make the concept fit with the restrictions,
and ask the GM a few questions to fix a part that can't quite fit given the restrictions.
That and if PCs walk over the GM's monsters, as I player I don't find the game fun as there is no challenge.

Heck, I randomise what I get and work with it to make my concepts.
As it's a good exercise to being resourceful with character concepts given restrictions.

You raise some excellent points Azure_Zero.

I agree 100% with the game having to be fun for both players and DM. This is the #1 rule to everything IMO and is why all playstyles are valid.

The mistakes made in these two submissions were mine, and mine alone. As soon as I see "I only allow X, X and X" I should go find a different game. I have a bad habit of reading what I want to read when I come across a new campaign.

"Ooooo, Ravenloft! I'm in!"
"Ooooo, I want to play a necromancer in Kingmaker!"

Rush off, make a character, study like crazy to make up for the time I spent, get yelled at by my wife, wash, rinse, repeat.

I don't find it fun, personally, to make characters within restrictions, but that is probably more due to how I make characters.

Spoiler:
I get a general concept based on what I've read in the submission or know about the AP. The more information in the request for submissions, the closer my idea is to theirs.

I then hit google and start looking for pictures of the character in my head. I spend anywhere from an hour to two doing this and have never failed to find something, even if it's not exactly what I want. Of course, I have twenty years working with Photoshop, so if I don't find what I want, I find something close and change it.

I then make the character in CoreForge in the class I was thinking and 3-4 similar classes. I try them as an oracle, then a cleric, then a fighter, then an alchemist. I'm looking for the class that lets me enact my vision, not what is more powerful. Example: I wanted to play a Kyton tiefling so I went with White Haired Witch and skinned her hair as chains. Magus was more powerful, but could only do the chains in combat and I wanted to be more casual with them.

I then start writing. I let the character go wherever it wants during this stage and rarely end up exactly where I thought I would.

I then go back and modify the character so she fits with everything I've written. Sometimes I have to change her class or even her race to get there. This is why the human became a Viskanya for the Ravenloft game. As I was writing, I decided she had been raised in a bad family, and so had poisoned them. The Powers don't like that, so they cursed her. Now her blood is poison. Cool.

Once all that is done, I put together the packet. I finalize any writing or add a bit extra after rereading the submission request. In this case, I wrote two pages about a Harrow reading since the cards were the focus of the campaign. I then tried to find a picture of an arabic fortune teller and couldn't find one. Meh. I did find a really cool Maralith though. So she becomes the fortune teller.

So then I went back and rewrote Shenhua's history to make her more responsible, so she'd try to save her house instead of running off. Wow, character just went from being Black Lagoon to Harry Potter. That's okay, wasn't there an asian girl in Harry Potter? I don't really know as I only saw the first two, but sure, lets go with it.

And that's how you got Shenhua. I think she took six hours. She ended up way different than she started, but I like her and I think she'll be cool.

PS: I never randomize anything. I am so glad that 3.5 introduced the point buy for abilities and the averaging for hit points. I would do away with randomizing altogether if I could. I don't want to play a random character, I want to play my character. My paladin in another game can't seem to roll double digits. Her inability to hit anything has gone in-game and now instead of being someone to look up to (as most paladins are), she's derided. Some might say "fine, that's fun too." Unfortunately, I'm not one of them. If I had wanted to play a comedic character, I'd have made a comedic character.

But that's just me. 8)


gyrfalcon wrote:
Oh! And Hogwarts is all well and good but the Isle of Roke in LeGuin's Earthsea series will always have a special place in my heart as a school for young wizards.

My sentiment exactly. I have been in love with those books my entire life. I have a comic strip - one panel - of a dog sitting patiently next to the skeleton of his owner beside a low wall. I think it resonates to me so strongly because of the picture of Ged next to the wall in the third book.


DM Jelani wrote:
If one player is much more powerful than the others and they have the same point buy/gold as each other, it means the other players need to up their game.

I have never understood why someone would make a really weak character and then insist that everyone come down to their level. There are no weak classes in the game, not really. Making an effective character takes no real skill and even if it does, it's nothing that 30 mins on the internet won't solve for you. I am not particularly good at min/maxing because I always go for cool over power.

I think it comes down to creativity. Some people want to play a vanilla game. I'm sure there are many reasons such a game can be fun, but they aren't fun for me. I think I have a gift for being creative and I like to do creative things. I'm also always willing to share and have made characters for friends many times. I pay a high price for my creativity in medical school, where it is a huge disadvantage.

I don't want to give the impression I think I'm special or something. I also don't want to bash anyone else's playstyle, so I'm going to just leave that there. Every playstyle is valid, provided everyone sitting at the table shares it.


I used to tailor make all my characters, and still do to some extent. But I've also basically played a variation of every concept that I want to play at this point. So now I occasionally randomize aspects of the character for a creative writing challenge. I make the crunch/personality I want, and then write a story to justify it.


Some minor changes to backstory where made. These changes modify the events of her father finding out. When i first wrote that scene in her backstory something felt off. I feel much better about it now.

Also, I have added two little glimpses into events of her past with Patches and Circus. The other two listed there are two I hope to write.


I'm not sure I agree with the idea that one character being more powerful than all the others is a good thing / acceptable. True, everyone has the same points and material to build a character, but if certain players are building a character around the RP concept and others are building the most powerful character they can mechanically, you could end up with vastly different character strengths. In addition, some players are simply better at designing an optimized character than others.

Minor differences in power-level's are fine, especially if the characters all do something different than one another, but I can definitely see how player enjoyment can be decreased if one character is vastly more powerful than the others. It could lead to the other players feeling like their characters are unnecessary, sidenotes, or even side-kicks to the optimized/twinked character.

This is also why generally as a rule all players start at the same level and with the same materials to build their characters. I know some friends of mine who back in the days of AD&D would quickly lose interest in characters whose randomly generated ability scores were sub-par at best and other characters in the same group had multiple 18's and generally super-human scores. They were sometimes even derided for this, but these days I don't think that was fair, especially since it was the dice dictating to them an altered vision of the character they originally had.

Let's face facts, few people would want to play a regular police officer, when the rest of the players are Spider-man, Thor, etc.


LurkingTyranny wrote:

....

This is also why generally as a rule all players start at the same level and with the same materials to build their characters. I know some friends of mine who back in the days of AD&D would quickly lose interest in characters whose randomly generated ability scores were sub-par at best and other characters in the same group had multiple 18's and generally super-human scores. They were sometimes even derided for this, but these days I don't think that was fair, especially since it was the dice dictating to them an altered vision of the character they originally had.

Let's face facts, few people would want to play a regular police officer, when the rest of the players are Spider-man, Thor, etc.

I agree so very much so,

Every character I generally roll gets substandard stats Only one stat above ten, and it's below 14, Heck I once rolled 4 of those sets in a row. And even then the average of my non-substandard roll sets is around 13.
While one of my friends keep rolling averages of about 16.5.

Hence why I love point-buy, and will very randomise a stat.


Oh, I agree completely. I'm just saying that there are very few "RP concepts" that can't be a validly optimized character in some way. As long as you are contributing something important to the group I think that's all that matters.

The real issue comes (as you mentioned) when you've got too many people occupying the same party role, or when two people occupy it and then one is more powerful than the other.

That happened in one game here on the boards to me. I had a cavalier, and so did another guy. We both had horse mounts (this was level 1, just starting Kingmaker by the way) but he spent all his money on barding and took mounted combat or something for his feat. I bought a lance and took power attack. After two combats where I killed the enemy with a lance charge before he did anything, he quit the game. Now, we had totally different character concepts personality and backstory wise, but very similar builds mechanically down to even race, stats and class. But because of his purchases and feat choice, my character was dramatically more powerful at level 1. Does that make me wrong somehow? I wasn't purposefully overshadowing him, but he didn't stick around long enough to see if things evened out over time. In fact in character I was trying very hard to make friends with him and was looking forward to working with him out of character. I think he could have still played the same character fluff wise, with a slightly different feat selection, and been much more powerful. Or waited a couple levels and it would have equalled out as he picked up power attack and a lance. Thus my comment that those players, rather than whining about other people's builds, need to up their game. Typically you are in total control of your character's growth, if your character sucks it's probably your fault. Now some people are new players etc, it's the other player's and DM's job to help them build their concept effectively. On top of that, it's 2013, use the google, read some guides if necessary. That's how I got started.

Pathfinder/D&D is not a good ruleset for pure RP characters. I'd say 50% or more of the game is combat simulation. It's possible to run purely RP games using the rules, but there are other systems much better suited to such pursuits.

Obviously there is no right answer here. Everyone has fun a little differently and not all groups are fun for all people. This is just my personal opinion on the matter. In the end it should be fun for everyone, or whoever is not having fun should quit.


I, Dmitri Valkov, hereby submit myself to the College of Shadows under the sign of The Inquisitor.


We've really only had two players in the last few tabletop campaigns that I played that went for min/max. Both wound up remaking their characters quickly.

The first was a 3.5 elf cleric archer with a build he got off the wizards forums. He shot a hydra, killed half the heads while we moved across the room. He then finished it off while we sat and watched. Next session he had a new character and said if he wanted to play by himself he'd play a computer game.

The next was a Pathfinder trip monk. He played it for six or seven sessions before rerolling and said that being a one trick pony is all well and fine, but it's boring. Again, none of us had said anything, and actually hadn't found him to be overpowered or anything, but I understand what he was saying.

When I run tabletop games, and I only really run Ravenloft, you need to have a very effective character to stay alive because I really up the difficulty level. You then need to really RP well because I deliberately throw temptations in front of you to turn to the darkside, and once you do, I thank you for the NPC while the rest of the party is trying to survive.

But that's Ravenloft, which is kind of different. My games are also well known for being really difficult and RP intensive, so people come in knowing that the odds of making a new character are high if they don't play at the top of their game.

I still don't really understand why someone would blame another player for their own suboptimal build however. It's not like we're rolling stats anymore and it's not like a good DM won't let you change a character you're really unhappy with. If all else fails, get your character killed and make a new one, it's not like we're going to kick you out of the group or anything.

I wish I had more time because I'd like to run a PbP game. It would have to have giant warning labels everywhere I suppose, but Tomb of Horrors is one of the most memorable 2ed modules for a reason and people still love to play it.


LurkingTyranny wrote:
I'm not sure I agree with the idea that one character being more powerful than all the others is a good thing / acceptable. True, everyone has the same points and material to build a character, but if certain players are building a character around the RP concept and others are building the most powerful character they can mechanically, you could end up with vastly different character strengths. In addition, some players are simply better at designing an optimized character than others.

I agree that one character being drastically overpowered is not desirable. As one of the RP players however, I've really only had that one 3.5 cleric that was so overpowered it was no fun.

I've had people that seemed ridiculously lucky with dice. That can be no fun.

I've had runs, sometimes very long ones, where I can't hit anything. That is certainly no fun.

I've also had people say, "Why can't you just make a normal human fighter or something, why do you always want to be different?" That was no fun.

Now I had a friend who made a cossack horsemen in a campaign where it just never worked out to fight mounted. He played it a lot longer than I probably would have before asking to switch to a fighter - same character, same history, personality, just now a fighter and not dependent on the horse.

Worked out well for everyone.


On the topic of this particular game (not trying to step on anyones toes or anything mind you), By a show of hands, who among you already have a concept of where you are going with your Eidolon? I have read a few of the backgrounds and see that some have even decided on what it will look like and so on. I was just curious on how far you have planned out your characters and Eidolons in advance.

I personally want to "play it by ear" so to speak... I am really interested to see (if selected anyway) how my character grows through this campaign and was thinking of determining its form and abilities through RP experience. I am curious if anyone else had a similar idea of if you have a map of what you want by the end of the campaign.


Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber

I have a general concept of what mine will look like. The evolutions i haven't really picked out because i want to see where things go first.


I know my eidolon wont be a pouncer but that is about it. I'll decide when we learn what new custom eidolon bases we get.


Zanithane wrote:

On the topic of this particular game (not trying to step on anyones toes or anything mind you), By a show of hands, who among you already have a concept of where you are going with your Eidolon? I have read a few of the backgrounds and see that some have even decided on what it will look like and so on. I was just curious on how far you have planned out your characters and Eidolons in advance.

I personally want to "play it by ear" so to speak... I am really interested to see (if selected anyway) how my character grows through this campaign and was thinking of determining its form and abilities through RP experience. I am curious if anyone else had a similar idea of if you have a map of what you want by the end of the campaign.

Despite not knowing all of what Rob plans for the new options for the Eidolons, I have a general idea of what I'm going with mine.

All eventual Seven of them.

He he he he he he he he.

They're going to be skill focused; All will have minor combat ability, but mostly, they'll each focus on a different skill (or two, early on), and provide skill-monkey support. Not to mention, they'll be able to swarm an enemy to provide flanking or distractions. UNLEASH THE HORDE!


DM Crustypeanut wrote:
Zanithane wrote:

On the topic of this particular game (not trying to step on anyones toes or anything mind you), By a show of hands, who among you already have a concept of where you are going with your Eidolon? I have read a few of the backgrounds and see that some have even decided on what it will look like and so on. I was just curious on how far you have planned out your characters and Eidolons in advance.

I personally want to "play it by ear" so to speak... I am really interested to see (if selected anyway) how my character grows through this campaign and was thinking of determining its form and abilities through RP experience. I am curious if anyone else had a similar idea of if you have a map of what you want by the end of the campaign.

Despite not knowing all of what Rob plans for the new options for the Eidolons, I have a general idea of what I'm going with mine.

All eventual Seven of them.

He he he he he he he he.

They're going to be skill focused; All will have minor combat ability, but mostly, they'll each focus on a different skill (or two, early on), and provide skill-monkey support. Not to mention, they'll be able to swarm an enemy to provide flanking or distractions. UNLEASH THE HORDE!

Just make sure they don't get hit by a cart...


I don't know what Taeo Oneshape's eidolon will be like now, though it'll certainly be fey-themed.

Mechanically, I'll consider what roles others want their eidolons to play. Thematically, I'm on the bus home from work and was just looking over illustrators I love for inspiration. I'm a big fan of classic D&D art so was looking at Dave Trampier illustrations...and then moved on to the more modern but very very fey art of James Jean.

Lantern Lodge

Nice submissions thus far,

I'm gonna do my best to get Hu ready for submission over the weekend, but we'll see what life has to say.

p.s.

Hu is to be a kitsune heir to the Tien throne ...I'll have to read up on my Jade Regent spoilers so I can figure out how to incorporate the failure of that.

The League of Extraordinary Royalty!
woo


do you still have room


Which Tian throne? Jade Regent is only in Minkai if I'm not mistaken. In this game world the Jade Regent won, and has taken over Minkai.

Edit:

Yingzen - Not the GM, but I'll do Rob a favor and point out that he said...

Robert Brookes wrote:
I will be selecting 6 students from the submitted characters to seek out the answers to the Mysterium Compact. Recruitment ends on October 11th at 11:00pm (-5GMT). Late submissions will not be considered.

No selections have been made yet.


Garret Wilson The Keep (Half Elf spear guy)

Aemelya The Survivor (Fetchling Orphan)

Zanithane The Lost (Tiefling slave)

Anlessa Kowan The Survivor (Human Runaway)

Alyona Elvanna The Betrayal (Human evil princess)

Yaz The Tangled Briar (Half-orc, raised by orcs)

Vathan The Forge (Aasimar prisoner)

Madai The Twins (Human varisian with imaginary friend)

Cassandra norst The Eclipse (changeling adoptee with teddy bear)

Shen Hua The Dance (Human bastard princess of Tian Ja)

Taeo Oneshape The Joke (Aasimar fey born)

Deriku The Owl (Shoanti foundling)

Dmitri Valkov The Inquisitor (Razmiran agitator’s son)

Lantern Lodge

DM Jelani wrote:

Which Tian throne? Jade Regent is only in Minkai if I'm not mistaken. In this game world the Jade Regent won, and has taken over Minkai.

I don't know at this point, honestly. Either way I'm aiming for him to just be destined to be an eventual ruler, something like he's the rightful emperor, but the evil powers that be are out to find him, so he's brought up in a hidden area or in a different nation and someday he shall return to free his people from the blight on the land. Of course that's once he's accumulated the power and allies to take the throne.

Pretty much an eventual campaign-end epilogue for the character if he lives that long.

He's a kitsune, and probably both himself and his first worlder eidolon will be multi-tailed foxes.

Personality wise, really aiming to play up the common tropes honestly. Sly as a Fox, Reckless, Capricious, and at times Aloof, Charming, Mysterious. Impulsive, quite a bit of going between these sort of extremes.

EDIT: Appearance up in the profile, I'll see about getting a write up of his personality and background up sometime tomorrow.

Bedtime!


Zanithane wrote:

On the topic of this particular game (not trying to step on anyones toes or anything mind you), By a show of hands, who among you already have a concept of where you are going with your Eidolon? I have read a few of the backgrounds and see that some have even decided on what it will look like and so on. I was just curious on how far you have planned out your characters and Eidolons in advance.

I personally want to "play it by ear" so to speak... I am really interested to see (if selected anyway) how my character grows through this campaign and was thinking of determining its form and abilities through RP experience. I am curious if anyone else had a similar idea of if you have a map of what you want by the end of the campaign.

I have my Eidolon written out to 20th, feats and all. Not saying I don't think I'll end up having to change half of it, but I built it, with evolutions, to resemble the outsider of which it is an aspect.


Zanithane wrote:

On the topic of this particular game (not trying to step on anyones toes or anything mind you), By a show of hands, who among you already have a concept of where you are going with your Eidolon? I have read a few of the backgrounds and see that some have even decided on what it will look like and so on. I was just curious on how far you have planned out your characters and Eidolons in advance.

I personally want to "play it by ear" so to speak... I am really interested to see (if selected anyway) how my character grows through this campaign and was thinking of determining its form and abilities through RP experience. I am curious if anyone else had a similar idea of if you have a map of what you want by the end of the campaign.

Play it by ear, sounds like there is a philosophy behind the college I would want to make sure was incorporated... though I am tempted by the idea of having it resemble the greatest predator, the fiercest monster, the most dangerous species of Golarion - The Orc!


Thinking a big wolf right now, if I get accepted. But that could very easily change. Something to be a protector and friend to Alyona.


Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber

I still really like the image of Giant Teddy Bear.


I'm not especially certain just yet. Backstory could suggest a bipedal creature with an ivory mask for a face, but I'm not especially married to that. His whole character concept is about questioning blind faith, so perhaps an angel dressed in motley or something like that would be more in character. The eidolon definitely is an extension of his psyche, that's for certain!


Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber
Dmitri Valkov wrote:
I'm not especially certain just yet. Backstory could suggest a bipedal creature with an ivory mask for a face, but I'm not especially married to that. His whole character concept is about questioning blind faith, so perhaps an angel dressed in motley or something like that would be more in character. The eidolon definitely is an extension of his psyche, that's for certain!

Just have to say that i really liked your backstory. I can picture him and him asking all sorts of questions.


I, Erik Vargas, hereby submit myself to the College of Shadows under the sign of The Big Sky.


Garret Wilson The Keep (Half Elf spear guy)

Aemelya The Survivor (Fetchling Orphan)

Zanithane The Lost (Tiefling slave)

Anlessa Kowan The Survivor (Human Runaway)

Alyona Elvanna The Betrayal (Human evil princess)

Yaz The Tangled Briar (Half-orc, raised by orcs)

Vathan The Forge (Aasimar prisoner)

Madai The Twins (Human varisian with imaginary friend)

Cassandra norst The Eclipse (changeling adoptee with teddy bear)

Shen Hua The Dance (Human bastard princess of Tian Ja)

Taeo Oneshape The Joke (Aasimar fey born)

Deriku The Owl (Shoanti foundling)

Dmitri Valkov The Inquisitor (Razmiran agitator’s son)

Erik Vargas The Big Sky (Chelaxian orphan)

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