Samnell's Writhing Coast (Inactive)

Game Master Samnell

Ah, I didn't think languages were that radically different for other races. I thought just the regional languages would be different. Normally gnomes start with common, gnome and sylvan. Here gnomes doesn't even have their own language and what passes for Sylvan is probably reorganized into other languages. So if we are using those languages, which ones would I start with (before int/linguistics)?

Gnomes speak gnome. Sylvan is a language. You're good to go with those. :)

Hooray for spell combat and cards! XD That'll definitely open up my options a little.

Hooray for spell combat and cards! XD That'll definitely open up my options a little.

I've put a couple of maps up to help you situate yourselves. They're not the same as the one Namtar offered up, but more focused on the region. Same place, different mapping style.

If anyone feels particularly inclined, this seems accurate though their info on the non-regional/human languages is a bit short : )

And here is the bigger version of Samnell's map if anyone want to see where we are in relation to Unther (south-eastern end of the Sea of Fallen Stars; Waterdeep/Daggerford is by the The Sword Coast label!). Being in this group saved Lu alot of travelling : P

There are variants. Maybe your current whatever is an immature version. It's statted like a squirrel but could be a pseudodragon or something.

Hmm. Now to figure out what makes a good mini-mephit ...

If anyone feels particularly inclined, this seems accurate though their info on the non-regional/human languages is a bit short : )

I strongly suspect that 3e's human languages were simplified from the Dragon Annual that's based on. Either way, it's close enough. Just remind me if anyone uses one of the more obscure terms for a tongue rather than the straight region name pattern of Chessenta for Chessentan, etc.

And here is the bigger version of Samnell's map if anyone want to see where we are in relation to Unther (south-eastern end of the Sea of Fallen Stars; Waterdeep/Daggerford is by the The Sword Coast label!). Being in this group saved Lu alot of travelling : P

Think of all the horses spared. :)

Indeed. XD As far as languages, I trimmed things down to simply "Dwarven, Elven, Sylvan" for the non-regional ones. Not sure what's gonna be needed in this game, or how often language will come up, but I figure it's hard to go wrong with those.

Incidentally, all, the gameplay thread's up for dotting...

I dotted and deleted the message so as to not clutter up the thread unnecessarily ;).

@Swordlord - Eventually, with Crane Riposte and the one-handed weapon trick, enemies provokes AoOs for hitting, missing by 4 or less and missing by 5 or more! Almost a Swashbuckler then : P

I just recently built a Swordlord.

A re-analysis of the character lead me to assume that I would not often be able to spend the inmediate action to retaliate on being hit(as per Swordlord 11), so a final state of Monk 1/Rogue 3/Fighter 7/Duelist 9 seemed preferable, and with staggered progression it only cost one BaB.

With Osyluth Guile around Level 8, the build would eventually have had scary AC against targets, with Dex, Cha, Wis, Int to AC.
Defensive Fighting with Steel Net and Crane Style would have caused no penalties and given +6 AC(Trait Bonus) flat, with +4 added from Wing.
In addition, due to the wording of Flurry of Maneuvers, a free Disarm(doing damage as per Swordlord 5) would have been added to any full attack(with bonus from improved).

I know you came in late with the submission, so just throwing some thoughts your way in case you want to consider them, as I did spend quite some time finetuning...starting level was 7 for that build, but then, Gestalt may alter things significantly enough that such advice is pointless, anyway :)

@Dotting: Aye, I also dotted, then deleted...soon after it was opened, actually :)

Also, I'm home on a family trip. I'll travel home, alone(SO + kid staying longer), by train, tomorrow evening, which is when I will take time to rewrite things.

@Alternative Swordlord Build - Having Dex, Cha, Wis and Int to AC is certainly nice, but I went with the easier Armour + Dex + Cha (with Osyluth Guile finding a spot at 8 thanks to fighter bonus feats!) as it takes such a long time for the extra stats to catch up with the armour bonus. Same reasoning for going with Str over Dex too really.

Probably going to try and fit in the Cut From The Air line as well, would be tough without the fighter feats!

Minor note: you seemed to have missed the +1 AC on fighting defensively if you have 3 or more Acrobatics ranks :P

@Travelling - Have fun while the trip lasts : )

(And it's good that you managed to catch a train - horses as we talked about earlier are a bit too slow :P)

@Dotting - Yepp. I'm dotted too :D

@Rednal/Saeri/Cynthia: Hey, I forgot...since Cynthia did say hi: I even have a "Marked by Mysterious Forces"-glowing sigil on my hand, as a shout-out to the dead other campaign (Yeah, I'm strange like that. You have Yidhra, Samnell has his parasite, I have Yin forcing me to do things)

@AC for Acrobatics: Aye, I always forget that one ;)
Every.
Single.
Time.
@Str+Armor: Hey, no worries. Mostly I just figured you could profit in other ways: Namely, the monk Level lets you skip one Feat on the way to Improved Disarm(and provides it), and provides one of the Feats needed for Crane Style anyway, so is worth 3 Feats if you want both.
The 3 Rogue Levels effectively provide Weapon Finesse, Slashing Grace, and a free Combat Feat(from Rogue Combat Trick), plus, in case of rake, free intimidates(synergizing well with shatter defenses and the 2d6 sneak, 3 if you fit in Accomplished Sneak Attacker)...so with one free Feat, Weapon Finesse, and Slashing Grace, thats 3 Feats worth for three Levels of Rogue.
So the total worth of one monk Level and 3 Rogue Levels is 6 Feats, more than Fighter, and there's goodies on top(free disarm every full attack, 2d6 sneak attack, more skill points)
Main reason I went that way was specifically because I could not fit everything I wanted in, even with Fighter Bonus Feats :) I had to gain stuff more efficiently, on alternate paths.
But there's definitely multiple ways a cookie can crumble...you are right that with a Str-based build it makes way less sense the way I did it.
@Armor: Actually I would have preferred wearing armor on the build, until such time as Mithral Chain Mail would have limited my Dex. With Str, thats a non-issue. I simply did not have enough wealth to make it worth it compared to the alternative(since Monk gets added to CMD, Armor does not, so I preferred the current setup)

I do think having the monk+rogue levels (and going the dex route) would be stronger in the long run. Thought the first few levels (months in pbp time, at least!) would be too rough for my tastes.

The monk dip would be really nice later on if the flurry of manoeuvrers worked in armour. I'm currently using Dirty Fighting to substitute for Improved Disarm for the time being; though the real deal would be better.

I swapped Yuriwood for Ardeep Forest in Kasyomnite's backstory. However it doesn't fit in quite as smoothly. There is no settlement like Relkath's Foot there. If we aren't actually going there I could probably just add such a place though, right? If Kasyomnite is from Ardeep he would be pretty much local. I also fixed languages. Should I do more out of it, that is, try to find a more suitable place, or is it fine as it is?

@Janus, Lucrecia: It sounds like a completely different build to me. Also a lot of people don't like taking a bunch of dips in order to gain small mechanical edges, so I would at least be cautious about suggesting it (personally I have nothing against dips and will for example take only a single level of Swashbuckler with Kasyomnite). By going strength you free up feats for other stuff (for example I would suggest Master Performer) and level 3 is a long time to wait in pbp.

I guess we are waiting on everyone to fix up backstories before we start?

Well, I got mine tweaked. XD For quality-of-life, I also added a numbered list of the harrow cards (sorted by attribute, then alignment) for the times when I need to RNG them.

@Feats - Though having extra slots for more feats, even with a str focus, is not looking too bright : P

Edit: Though now that I look at the list, a dip in Mastery of Many Styles would let Lu gain the effects of both Weapon Style Mastery and grab Crane Style.

If Lu was Lawful and Kata Master wasn't nerfed, that archetype would have been nice to throw in the mix. Though right now that other archetype would have to bee Martial Artist to sidestep the alignment issues :P

@Waiting - That I think : )

@Janus, Lucrecia: It sounds like a completely different build to me. Also a lot of people don't like taking a bunch of dips in order to gain small mechanical edges, so I would at least be cautious about suggesting it (personally I have nothing against dips and will for example take only a single level of Swashbuckler with Kasyomnite). By going strength you free up feats for other stuff (for example I would suggest Master Performer) and level 3 is a long time to wait in pbp.

Oh, you got it all wrong. I'm playing with Lessah in another game, and Lessah is playing in a game of mine. I figured since I just did built a sword-lord, I'd share with her.

It was not meant as generic advice the way you suggested various things, simply as a "Hey look I recently did this homework, take a look and see if you can use anything", with added explanation, to someone I already know from other games. I'm pretty certain Lessah did not take it the wrong way, otherwise I would not have brought it up in the first place.

Because I myself am not very happy if I'm receiving "advice" from other players, all the more if it happens randomly - so I try not to do that same thing I dislike to others. If it seemed that way, I was too forward, but it was not the intent.
I simply knew that I did run into problems with the Feat chains despite fighter feats, AND into problems with swift+inmediate action economy, and wanted to spare a friend the work to find alternate paths when I already found some.

I'm pretty certain Lessah did not take it the wrong way, otherwise I would not have brought it up in the first place.

No, too late, I can never play with you again!

I jest of course! :P

Now to something different!

Anyone knows if Mephits actually grow up?

I can't remember the specifics of forgotten realms, but I seem to remember them simply starting to exist (similar to all the other outsiders!) but if we ignore that for a moment I'm thinking of using the monkey stats for a immature mephit. The stats do sorta line up and the climb-speed can be explained by moving around with the help of not-fully-developed wings.

Another option would be simply using the pig stats for an flightless mephit. Though then it would be a bit more questionable to try and utilize it's fully formed hands : P

I swapped Yuriwood for Ardeep Forest in Kasyomnite's backstory. However it doesn't fit in quite as smoothly. There is no settlement like Relkath's Foot there. If we aren't actually going there I could probably just add such a place though, right? If Kasyomnite is from Ardeep he would be pretty much local. I also fixed languages. Should I do more out of it, that is, try to find a more suitable place, or is it fine as it is?

That's really up to you. I know Ardeep isn't exactly what you had in mind, but it would be a small matter to say that there's a settlement in the High Forest that meets the description. I'd put it in Ardeep, except that it's a really small forest these days.

I guess we are waiting on everyone to fix up backstories before we start?

And also me. But no longer.

So I guess it would be better to find another forest then. I don't think i'll have time to look through the options today.

Now to something different!

Anyone knows if Mephits actually grow up?

I can't remember the specifics of forgotten realms, but I seem to remember them simply starting to exist (similar to all the other outsiders!) but if we ignore that for a moment I'm thinking of using the monkey stats for a immature mephit. The stats do sorta line up and the climb-speed can be explained by moving around with the help of not-fully-developed wings.

Another option would be simply using the pig stats for an flightless mephit. Though then it would be a bit more questionable to try and utilize it's fully formed hands : P

I made it easy for me; I just picked up a normal trush familiar and worry about any improved ones later :P

It's been a while since I did funny accents. Right now its leading "th" -> "z". Do tell if it gets annoying and I'll stop : )

Updated campaign trait, picked up Noble Born for +1 to CMD and +1 to Stealth. I'm more tied to the area than I would be Unther so missionary made less sense and Noble Born seemed the most appropriate and useful.

Way to make a great first impression, hu? Weekend was busy with family events, and internet on the train was spotty, at best. I have not managed to accomplish what I set out to do(update Janus AND the game I run), but I'll make sure to be done tomorrow and get a post into gameplay. Apologies for the delay.

@Haytham: I must say that I agree with Rednald in that I'm not a fan of stealth in pbp. If you do use it, all the rest of the group has to wait, potentially for days or weeks, while you scout. Waiting around is boring and cause people to lose interest. I'm also puzzled about the choice for your character specifically. No dex bonus, medium size and armor all makes it much harder to pull off. Perception is often the monster's highest skill and they often get many rolls to beat your one. I think it would be more fun if you were to look at other options.

@Kasyomite: I have a few reasons for taking stealth and scouting ahead isn't really one of them. First, while doing crunch I knew I wanted to have my Red Knight class (cleric or warpriest) on one side and a martial on the other to duplicate some of the feel of the specialist priests of the Knight in 2nd ed. Well, after waffling a bit I decided to go cleric as I wasn't sure how the party would look and wanted to ensure a 9 level divine was in the mix, also the free leadership from Nobility domain was a bit of a bonus. This left me with the martial side to consider. Strong contenders were Fighter, Bloodrager, Ranger, Slayer, and Brawler. Now Red Knight's priests generally wear the heaviest armor they can get their hands on so Brawler's light armor focus was out, medium was my minimum. Bloodrager would of been a bit too MAD as I was already aiming for full and bonus spells as a cleric. Ranger was attractive but didn't fit as thematically as I would like. This left Fighter and Slayer. Fighter would of been more classic but I like the thematic ties of the Studied Target for a Holy Strategist (and I have a love of skills that I can't deny). So I picked Slayer as my second line.

For the sake of effectiveness Wisdom took the top spot so I could milk as many bonus spells as I could, allowing me to use buffs and summons to make up for other failings. Strength would need to be decent to carry full armor and shield and for the sake of melee and Charisma would help with Channel Energy. Con would be good to have a positive modifier and get a few extra HP. Int gets me skill points, a slight bonus to knowledge, and is a thematic choice harkening back to 2nd. Dex got short end of the stick cause I'm going to be in at least medium armor and use a shield and ideally will never have to pull my crossbow. That being said, I did pick Slayer and part of my internal justification was that he was trained for reconnaissance duties so I felt I should drop a bit into Stealth. I was already getting a bonus to Perception from high Wis and Half Elf so the free Skill Focus was a fairly easy call to offset some armor penalties.

The choice of campaign trait was harder, when given all the campaign traits as options I was I little uninspired. So I sketched a deeper background and then looked for a trait that matched. Originally I chose Missionary as a partial justification for being in Unther which was no longer necessary in Haytham's home area. I looked and found a few options that looked promising but Noble Born kept calling out to me. It offers a few different families and one in particular caught my eye, giving a +1 to CMD (As a front liner this will be nice) and a +1 to one of three skills one of which was Stealth which already had some investment. So that ended up being the winner. Somewhat arbitrary but sometimes its nice not to go all out, and once we start picking up levels the benefits of cleric//slayer will outweigh these arbitrary choices.

TL/DR: Stealth is a character choice and due to my weirdness, if it comes up it won't be from scouting.

Also I think it's kinda funny that the stompy guy in bright red armor can occasionally catch people by surprise.

@Stealth - Meh, anything that just one or two characters can do is sorta wonky in pbp (like talking to npcs or identifying weird magical runes or or ...) but as long as it's handled somewhat swiftly I don't see a problem with it. For stealth the easiest way of handling it is probably simply rolling a stealth check and then having the GM briefly detail how much info the scout manages to get, if any.

For talking to npcs I greatly prefer that what you say counts too, not just how you roll. Then everyone can participate, even if the actual roll ends up as aid another.

Agree. Though my point was that if Character A wants to ask the innkeeper a quick question that conversation could easily drag on for a week in pbp if it wanted to, which would be just as bad/good/a thing as sneaking off down the hallway for a week :P

Aye. Also, one of my most favorite characters in pbp was stealth-based.
Only, she was battlefield control and healing/buffing. The main draw was maintaining stealth in combat situations by not giving away her position. If she remembered to be tac-ti-cal, that is.

Also, it can be useful situationally. If several members of the group do have stealth, I often try to work it in for my character as well. Try and bypass something by sneaking past? Set up an ambush? Have 2 guys go ahead and try to take out the guard silently? Thats all a group-decided activity offering alternate paths of progress, and would(in the latter aspect) work splendidly with minion rules(because you DO knock that guard out - rather than roll minimal damage and have him cry for his buddies).

That said, I am very much in favor of choosing things because they feel flavorful, regardless of wether one gets to use them. So I'm with Haytham here...I read the full post, but the TL:DR would have been enough to sway me.

@Stealth - Meh, anything that just one or two characters can do is sorta wonky in pbp (like talking to npcs or identifying weird magical runes or or ...) but as long as it's handled somewhat swiftly I don't see a problem with it. For stealth the easiest way of handling it is probably simply rolling a stealth check and then having the GM briefly detail how much info the scout manages to get, if any.

My inclination in both cases is to resolve things expeditiously. With RP, everyone chiming in can mechanically be an aid another to the person with the best mod and/or the person clearly leading the exchange. Or so far as I can get without hurrying you out of RP. I don't want to discourage forethought or pumping NPCs for information. :)

That's fair : )

I just got sick, so it might be difficult to keep up. But I'll try. Just thought I would let you know.

@Sick - I'm sorry to hear that! I hope you get better real quick and that it isn't too bothersome in the meanwhile : )

@GM/Familiar - I've added Lu's modified perception for having her familiar Arun around (from Alertness) as well as his own perception (not that seemed to have done him any good ^^) to my status-bar!

I just got sick, so it might be difficult to keep up. But I'll try. Just thought I would let you know.

Just do what you can and take care of yourself. If things get held up, I'll possess Kas and have him be generally cooperative and inoffensive until you're better.

I sadly need to sleep now, otherwise I'd take the opportunity to talk a bit more. But someone else can take over I hope : )

(And don't forget to bribe him a bit more after we're done just to get him not to talk about how we are looking for them pesky adventurers : P)

Sorry for not asking you how you want to play things first...

1) I guess you answered this already, but the verbal components of message means that it's not actually useful for stealthy stuff unless you cast it beforehand.

2) Do you have to chose the targets when you cast the message spell, or can you chose them later?

3) Can I use ghost sound for noise canceling? In the real world it would certainly work if you knew exactly what sounds you wanted to negate.. It should have long enough duration for the casting of a spell.

...Have you considered just slipping someone a note instead of casting at them? XD

By RAW though sneaking spells are sorta (annoyingly!) hard though there are some remedies. This one is quite handy, though it eats up two feats and comes down to dice-rolls. Might still be an alternative, especially since you could pull off the somewhat more far-fetched "no sir, I'm not quite sure how that fireball got there!" : P

...Have you considered just slipping someone a note instead of casting at them? XD

Though what's the point of having magical powers and not using them?!

Magic: The Solution (and cause) of most fantasy problems!

Sorry for not asking you how you want to play things first...

1) I guess you answered this already, but the verbal components of message means that it's not actually useful for stealthy stuff unless you cast it beforehand.

2) Do you have to chose the targets when you cast the message spell, or can you chose them later?

3) Can I use ghost sound for noise canceling? In the real world it would certainly work if you knew exactly what sounds you wanted to negate.. It should have long enough duration for the casting of a spell.

Sneaky spells are hard, barring feats. But message has a long enough duration that you can cast it ahead of time. Because of the duration, and to make it remotely usable, I'll let you pick targets after casting. Basically the spell sets up a standing field you can use to generate the effect, with enough juice in it to connect one target per level. You can designate that target at any time during the duration.

Ghost Sound for noise cancelling sounds cool, but also pretty precise and it specifically can't do things like mimic exact speech. You could cast it (Verbal components again) and then run it to cover up the sound of Message's casting. If you were using something more like ventriloquism, I'd probably allow you to fog out or equalize the verbal components (though it itself has one) with a loop of sound that runs over them. Figure there would be a Spellcraft check to make sure you got it exactly right, but nothing too bad.

Saeri, Professional Harrower wrote:

...Have you considered just slipping someone a note instead of casting at them? XD

Though what's the point of having magical powers and not using them?!

Magic: The Solution (and cause) of most fantasy problems!

If wizards broke it, wizards can keep wizarding it until it's broken back around to fixed. :)

Lucrecia Willow wrote:

Saeri, Professional Harrower wrote:

...Have you considered just slipping someone a note instead of casting at them? XD

Though what's the point of having magical powers and not using them?!

Magic: The Solution (and cause) of most fantasy problems!

If wizards broke it, wizards can keep wizarding it until it's broken back around to fixed. :)

Usually! If Wizards broke something so hard that whatever they broke starts breaking Wizards, then you need a group of adventurers!

Otherwise they could do everything all by themselves - without worrying about Paradox... *smile*

Usually! If Wizards broke something so hard that whatever they broke starts breaking Wizards, then you need a group of adventurers!

Otherwise they could do everything all by themselves - without worrying about Paradox... *smile*

Dear Penthouse,

Praise Yidhra.

I-I mean, oh dear. o wo Incidentally, Saeri's mostly just keeping watch, but is there anything else anyone would like me to do while I'm there? Gather info in town, maybe?

It seems as if we hit a sore spot somewhere!

I'll get a post up tonight : )

I got both silent image and ghost sound as SLAs, that'll serve my purpose for tricky spells nicely. Too bad I didn't think of it earlier.

@Saeri: I hate splitting the party. Sorry for suggesting it. My idea was that we would all go to the same inn, but split off to different parts of the room, though obviously it didn't quite work out that way.

I believe SLA's are still obvious when casting. XD So... not super stealthy or anything, unless you put the extra effort in, but...