Hi, players. Here's the discussion thread, where we can handle heavy OOC stuff and other such blather. A few things.
Automatic Bonus Progression We talked about it a bit in the recruitment thread and I said I'd raise it here. If you're generally of a mind to switch over to that, I'm cool with it. I'd go with the sense of the party, since I think it would end up confusing for all of us in the long run if some PCs used it and some didn't.
Some Canon Notes I looked through the backstories and wanted to set a few things down more clearly before we dove in. These aren't huge deals, I just want us all on the same setting page. Which does not have a number because it's a metaphorical page. Not one of the numbered ones the Solamnics use to wrangle their codpieces.
1) The Dragonarmies are not presently common knowledge anywhere around Abanasinia. They are active, and about to become much more so, but unless your PC was on the far end of the continent in the last two or three years it's very unlikely that you've heard anything except vague rumors about some kind of war out in the east.
2) Even if you have heard of the dragonarmies, nobody has seen a dragon in living memory. It's been about 1300 years, so even very old elves don't have any firsthand knowledge of them. Most people think they've either all died or were a myth from the beginning.
3) You are, of course, sans divine magic for the present. Even the devout of the Old Gods aren't so gifted yet. I think everyone's clear on that, but it's worth a mention considering how things will go. :)
Hook Stuff I am using the "gone five years looking for signs of gods" deal. It doesn't have to be a literal five years and you needn't have gone far, but rather than have some PCs start up while others have to wait for the story to get going I'm going to run with the idea that the appointed day of meeting is at hand. If you've been back in town for a while, then you were out of town for some reason for a fair part of the day and are on your way back in for the big reunion.
I don't think any of that should pinch backstories too hard.
Aliases! Please set up your aliases if you haven't already. Sheets on the profile page, etc. If you're not sure what I'm looking for there, here's an example from my other PBP.
Formatting Stuff I'd like for you to use quotation marks and bold text for things your PC says aloud. They help it stand out better and distinguish from thoughts, which you can put in italics if you mean them to be word-for-word. Stage directions, description, etc, can go in as regular text. Use the ooc tags for rules questions, clarification, etc.
For example:
Samnell flounced into the tavern and whined, "This guy's historiography sucks! Honestly, I'd rather read proslavery propaganda." There is something deeply wrong with me.
Good? Questions? We've got a whole thread here for 'em. :)
"Hiya! I'm Thistletorp Babblebrook!" A diminutive kender waves at everyone he sees. "How are you!?" The words come out so fast they seem to almost be a single sound.
Checking in! Thanks for the opportunity.
I like automatic progression bonuses with reduced WBL.
I'm away for two weeks and will only have spotty internet. Please bot me as needed.
Caitlyn was late, as usual. Of course tonight was the much vaunted five year meeting, being late would be bad so she ran lightly with her firey red hair trailing behind her. Up ahead was her adopted step sister, pulling along side her she grinned, "Hey Mariel, Thomas couldn't make it. Ma and Pa are looking after Justin and Thomas is looking after them. Of course that doesn't mean he isn't thinking of you, he is trust me. Did I mention he's real fond of you? Anyway he asked me to take care of you tonight, so here I am!" To underline this, Caitlyn claps Mariel on the back, which probably hurts since Caitlyn doesn't know her own strength.
I will get my profile done today or this evening. I have a full day of teaching today and a Governing Council meeting later this evening.
"Ah Thistletorp, there you are. I am looking forward to meeting your friends in this town, what was it called Solace? From there though I will need to journey to Wayreth. If you wish you could come with me, I am sure the Wizards would love to have a Kender around the tower..."
Looking sadly at Caitlyn "Your brother, and my friend, will be missed. I hope that our time in Solamnia did not break his spirit. I will remember him and your family in my prayers tonight to the Seeker gods" she says.
"Hiya Jakun!" The tiny kender bounces over to stare up at the minotaur wizard and waves. "Whatcha been up to? I was here, waiting for you. Before then, I was over there..." He points vaguely north. This could mean that he was at the other end of the common room, the other side of town, or Nordmarr. Knowing Thistletorp, however, it probably meant that he was in Sancrist or talking himself out of a hobgoblin cook pot. Possibly while in Sancrist. "It was fun! There was a cook pot! I jumped in to see what was inside, because they said it was stew.. But, it could also have been jewels, or a very small tiger. Or gems. Whatever was in there certainly didn't belong in there, and they would have lost it! Or, at the very least, they would have cooked their gems and tigers! I'm pretty sure nothing would have happened to the gems that could have been in the cook pot, but the stew wouldn't have tasted very good. Maybe it would have. I should find someone to make gem stew and see how it tastes. But, that poor tiger! If it had been in the cook pot, it would have been cooked! That wouldn't have been good at all."
He nods emphatically and crosses his arms. "So, I needed to go in to the cook pot! Then, they put the lid on! That was fun, but very hot. I burnt my finger and toes." He held up perfectly undamaged fingers and tried to hold up his toes as well. It didn't work out very well. "They wouldn't let me out, but, finally, I tricked them. Hobgoblins are silly! They're great to play jokes on! They didn't think so, though. They don't have very good senses of humor, you know. And, that's why I had to leave Hilo."
He grins rocks back and forth on the balls of his feet. "You still have your horns! That's good. I'm glad you didn't lose them! I tried to grow my own horns, and that's why I ended up in HIlo. It didn't work out well. I ended up in a hobgoblin cookpot."
@Thistletorp & Jakun
Caitlyn has a rather high diplomacy score (for a barbarian!) so I'll try and sweet talk the guards, unless you want to try something rash ;)
Thistletorp has a pretty high Bluff score. Between the two of us we should be able to talk our ways out of anything.
I wonder if we can convince them that Jakun is in fancy dress.
Oh probably! Jakun is a very distinguished and respected sort of minotaur, after all. He has horns, and horns make people seem distinguished and respectable. Except for demons and Devils. They're not ver distinguished, or respectable. Dragons are, though, and they have horns.
Come on people, lets get this started!
This is going to be fun.
Tania's player is traveling. Not sure why the others are quiet. I'll go drop a note in the Recruitment thread.
Whoa sorry didn't see that this went live. I've had a whirlwind of a busy day and I'm just getting in (at 2:49am EST). As much as I'd love to dive head first into this game, I've gotta be up by 6:30 to drive my partner to work and I'm just about ready to collapse. I will make a post tomorrow, I promise.
Whoa sorry didn't see that this went live. I've had a whirlwind of a busy day and I'm just getting in (at 2:49am EST). As much as I'd love to dive head first into this game, I've gotta be up by 6:30 to drive my partner to work and I'm just about ready to collapse. I will make a post tomorrow, I promise.
Life happens. It's ok. :)
Oh I just realized Thistletorp is from Solace too. I'm wondering why she wouldn't have recognized him. Maybe Caitlyn's strict parents didn't let her mix with kender.
I'm fine with Automatic Bonus Progression. It's less customization, but I feel it fits in nicely with less to keep up with for gear.
I Aagree.. unfortunatley i spent all my gear and would hate to rebuild him.
:)
So I'm probably being super dense, but what exactly is going on with starting gear/wealth?
Also, turns out what I read so long ago was The War of Souls. Not sure how relevant that part of Dragonlance will be. I'm not too keen on the languages. What languages would a human who grew up among minotaurs know?
So I'm probably being super dense, but what exactly is going on with starting gear/wealth?
Guess I should probably do some counting and figure it out.
For bonus progression, with consequent reduced gear budget:
Taina
Gavin
Thistletorp (but doesn't want to redo his gear)
Neutral:
Mariel (either doing things as they stand now or doing bonus progression result in the elimination of loot tracking spreadsheets)
No ballot cast:
Caitlyn
Jakun
That looks like a go-ahead, unless someone has a strong but hitherto unvoiced objection.
Also, turns out what I read so long ago was The War of Souls. Not sure how relevant that part of Dragonlance will be. I'm not too keen on the languages. What languages would a human who grew up among minotaurs know?
I've never read the War of Souls stuff...but it shouldn't matter too much. The game is a fair bit before it all begins in continuity. Main thing is that there currently aren't any giant dragon overlords running large sections of the continent. Dragons of all sorts are presently absent, but you'll see some soon enough.
I'm not sure I understand item.progression.
I like the War of Souls novels. Who knows, if we do things well it might never come to pass. Maybe we do the Legends lol.
I'm not sure I understand item.progression.
You know how the game assumes you have certain items at certain levels? That's usually handled with your wealth by level, with the assumption that players will get the right stuff. Most players do: magic weapons, armor, +stat items, etc. But some don't or get irritated that they need to spend a bunch of their allegedly discretionary funds on de facto required gear.
So the bonus progression just gives you those bonuses as you gain levels, and in exchange you get half as much gp to allot to whatever you like. There's a table of the bonuses. You spend the other half of your gp on whatever you like, with a couple of exceptions:
1) Items that only grant a bonus to to AC, saves, or abilities don't exist.
2) Magic weapons and armor still exist, but they don't give you bonuses. They just add special abilities. So instead of having to get a +1 sword before you can get flaming, you can just buy flaming for the cost of its +X modifier.
The party is fifth level, so the bonuses would be:
+1 resistance to all saves (bonus types are still a thing)
armor & weapon attunement +1
Pick a weapon and a piece of armor. They're +1 for you now. You can designate normal clothes as armor for this.
deflection +1
You get a +1 deflection bonus to your AC.
So to implement this, you would add these bonuses to your sheet, remove any items that no longer exist or function differently under the rule (magic weapons and armor for the latter), and then take half the wealth by level you previously allocated gear with and reassign it however you like.
You'll probably end up slightly ahead, but if you invested in a lot of high-ticket items then you might have to give something up.
Make sense now?
i boughted 2 magic swords.. so how does that work?
In principle the automatic bonus progression sounds fine, but I dislike waiting till level 7 to get +2 strength. As usual pathfinder design favours casters over martials.
I'll vote against but will follow the majority decision.
Edit: I thought I'd expand on this slightly. Like many people I'm not keen on all the accounting for loot. Also I agree the "big six" are boring, and stop players from using a lot of oddball fun items. Likewise I would prefer if magic items were special where you only had a few of them.
In theory automatic bonus progression fixes most of this. The problem to my mind is they chose a one size fits all implementation (probably due to lack of space) where one group of classes gets a stat bump before another. I would have preferred everyone to get the main stat bump at the same time.
i boughted 2 magic swords.. so how does that work?
You can apply your weapon attunement bonus to one of them. The other one can still be masterwork. At 8th level, you can split your +2 bonus into two +1 bonuses and have both.
How would this interact with treasure found if it is better than we have?
How would this interact with treasure found if it is better than we have?
I assume you can still sell for half price just like normal. But the cool thing is you'd do this less often since you don't need to ditch a +1 weapon because you found a +2 weapon. You probably would ditch a fiery long sword for a keen flame burst one however.
I have never done this in a game. Is there a table where I can see what we get at each level?
Table: Character Wealth by Level
PC Level* Wealth
2 1,000 gp
3 3,000 gp
4 6,000 gp
5 10,500 gp
6 16,000 gp
7 23,500 gp
8 33,000 gp
9 46,000 gp
10 62,000 gp
11 82,000 gp
12 108,000 gp
13 140,000 gp
14 185,000 gp
15 240,000 gp
16 315,000 gp
17 410,000 gp
18 530,000 gp
19 685,000 gp
20 880,000 gp
Level Bonuses Gained
1st —
2nd —
3rd Resistance +1
4th Armor attunement +1, weapon attunement +1
5th Deflection +1
6th Mental prowess +2
7th Physical prowess +2
8th Armor attunement +1/+1, resistance +2, toughening +1, weapon attunement +1/+1
9th Armor attunement +2, weapon attunement +2
10th Deflection +2, resistance +3
11th Mental prowess +4
12th Physical prowess +4
13th Mental prowess +4/+2, physical prowess +4/+2, resistance +4, toughening +2
14th Armor attunement +2/+2 or +3, resistance +5, weapon attunement +2/+2 or +3
15th Armor attunement +3/+3 or +4, mental prowess +6/+2 or +4/+4, weapon attunement +3/+3 or +4
16th Deflection +3, physical prowess +6/+2 or +4/+4, toughening +3
17th Armor attunement +4/+3 or +5, deflection +4, mental prowess +6/+2/+2 or +4/+4/+2, physical prowess +6/+2/+2 or +4/+4/+2, toughening +4, weapon attunement +4/+3 or +5
18th Deflection +5, mental prowess +6/+4/+2 or +4/+4/+4, physical prowess +6/+4/+2 or +4/+4/+4, toughening +5
19th 3 legendary gifts
20th 5 legendary gifts (8 total)
21st 7 legendary gifts (15 total)
22nd 8 legendary gifts (23 total)
So right now I would have 10500 gp give or takel(haven't bought anything but standard stuff) I could have a cloak of resistance +1 and Armor or Robes +1?
@our illustrious GM. How does this work with our normal +1 ability boost every 4 levels?
Does it stack or replace it?
If we tried it, at level 5 we would have 5250g to spend on stuff and built in +1 resistance and +1 armor and +1 weapon.
So you could have a cloak of elven kind instead of a boring cloak of resistance which most people feel obliged to get. You can also get an Aegis of Recovery instead of a necklace of natural armor. Being able to use overlooked items is nice.
On the negative side, you can't have a flaming weapon till level 9 which is later than usual.
Re +1 stat at level 4, 8, 12, 16, I think we still get that.
On the negative side, you can't have a flaming weapon till level 9 which is later than usual.
On a closer look I think I may have misunderstood that. It seems you could have a +0 flaming sword or even a vorpal one (that sounds ridiculous to me, I shall go and find out if there have been any published corrections).
If a character doesn't have enough of an enhancement bonus to afford the special ability (such as a 4th-level character with a vorpal longsword), she can still use the weapon's power on its own, but the weapon gains no enhancement bonus.
I was going to ask that.
I don't think I like after looking at it because I haven't seen it used.
Yeah, I believe the stat boosts every 4 levels stack.
For example, a flame tongue is normally worth 20,715 gp, but under this system, it would lose its +1 enhancement bonus and its price would be reduced to 18,715 gp.
Ah you have to pay for the enchantments, so its impossible for a level 4 character to get a vorpal weapon since its too expensive. That's good.
On the other hand, a player who wants a flaming burst sword and has an attunement bonus of +2 will pay 8000gp and end up with a basic +0 flaming burst sword, spending about 34% of a level 9 character's wealth. In comparison, a player who pays nothing has a 2 sword, which can be considered to have equivalent power to the flaming burst sword. That's not so good.
The more I read the less I like. DL is a low magic world especially because of the Cataclysm and Lost Battles.
I like the idea of it, I just don't like the implementation.
Actually I think if anything its better than the default system for a low magic world since you won't be selling a +2 cloak you just got in favor of a +3 cloak.
I still like the idea of virtual loot because it frees us from having to put everything we find in a spreadsheet and faffing about searching for ye olde magic shoppe which definitely doesn't fit krynn.
On the other hand I don't know how a Dragonlance fits into this, or an orb of dragonkind. Those are iconic things you need to find as part of the plot.
Idea is not bad maybe starting at 1st level and seeing it done that way.
There are Mage ware shops in larger cities.
i've played this in a Wrath of the Righteous game, it's not that bad, actually.
1) no loot arguing (i've seen games collapse because people were childish at the dinner table)
2) way more customization. Personally i hate ability boost items since they're boring, and they're extremely tedious if you lose them: feat re-writes (which may negate entire builds and concepts); spell totals; skill, save, attack, damage, hitpoint, and feat recalcs; casting parameters; most of those change if gear is lost or sold.
3) on a personal note, i always end up behind the curve on treasure, unless I'm a caster. Probably because casters really need so very little gear to dominate. But for warriors? I NEVER get the right weapon or armor for my build, even when loot is tailored for the party. It's either too late, or not enough because it needed to balance the others' gear. Or, there are like 2 or 3 other melee types in the mix and they could use the boosts as much as I could and so, one of us defers with the expectation something will come along the way, which necessitates a discussion with others. As a GM, I've never seen gear track the way it's supposed to by level.
4) because loot is sold for 1/2 of what it's worth, you never see the total by level on the chart. So, you're forced to either keep an item that really doesn't work for you, or you're forced to sell it at a loss, which reduces your overall PC wealth.
I prefer wealth by level and automatic bonuses
Thanks for sharing your experience with us.
1. No loot arguments! -- Sign me up!
2. Agreed big-6 are boring
3. I agree that it's super easy for casters to end up ahead of WBL. Like you say, even if they are (deliberately) behind WBL they are still strong (e.g. my Arcanist from an Iron Gods games on these boards).
4. Mathematically speaking you are right, still it never bothered me which is strange in a way.
Anyway if the majority want to go with APB then so be it.
How about for the Prowess bonus at 6th, we have the option of Mental or Physical, but for the bonus at 7th, we have to take the other.
I'd be cool with that.
That works for me.