Vin Vender sounds like a mispronounciation of Wim Wenders so I've got all sorts of mental images....
...thanks for the interlude, it's fun to sit and watch the interaction without being part of it...
I am writing up a post that takes you from here all te way to the start of Feast of Ravenmoor... It'll railroad / handwave most of the journey but I think this interaction in Sandpoint is probably the most fun part anyway...
Zed: I have a question that I'm asking for purely selfish reasons...
Have you given any thought to instituting the "Background Skills" system from Pathfinder Unchained?
Not given them much fault... Was thinking about other elements of Unchained though...
Sell me on the background skills thing... What were you interested in?
Here's what I wrote in my Runelords game when I introduced background skills...
Background Skills
At every level, all PCs gain an additional 2 skill points to spend on background skills. You may spend regular skill points on background skills if you want, but you may not spend background skill points on adventuring skills.
Background skill list:
Appraise
Artistry [-new skill-]
Craft
Handle Animal
Knowledge (engineering)
Knowledge (geography)
Knowledge (history)
Knowledge (nobility)
Linguistics
Lore [-new skill-]
Perform
Profession
Sleight of Hand
All other skills are adventuring skills.
[Note that the Knowledge skills that allow you to know stuff about monsters in combat are adventuring skills.]
Lore is a class skill for all characters. Artistry is a class skill for any character with Craft or Perform as a class skill.
Artistry (Int)
You are skilled in the creative arts. Like Perform or Craft, Artistry is a number of separate skills. You may have multiple Artistry skills, each with their own ranks. Artistry represents creating works of art that are not necessarily tangible objects. Common Artistry skills are choreography, criticism, literature (including poetry), music composition, philosophy, and playwriting.
Lore (Int); Trained Only
You have specialized knowledge about a specific topic. Your knowledge is generally much narrower than that of a sage of scholar. Like Artistry, Lore is a catchall skill. You may know Lore about several topics, each with its own ranks. Lore may be about a region (such as a town or forest), a narrow discipline (such as riddles, owlbears, or metallurgy), or a kind of person (such as famous musicians, Chelish naval officers, or Shoanti chieftains). Whenever your topic comes up, you may substitute a Lore check for a more general Knowledge check.
Converting Existing Characters
Converting existing characters is easy. PCs gain 2 background skill ranks per character level, and can spend those on background skills as usual. PCs that already spent ranks on what are now background skills can trade the new points for points already spent, freeing conveyed ranks to spend on adventuring skills if desired.
* * *
All of the players in this campaign are excellent role-players, and I think we've all deliberately chosen some skill ranks in less-than-useful skills to mechanically flesh out our extensive back-stories. This system rewards this kind of choice by giving more ranks to flesh that out, without having to skimp on spending tanks on more generally useful skills. For example, Zee should probably have ranks in Sleight of Hand to represent her expert card shuffling ability. (I've been fudging that by just saying "magic.") I didn't because I'd run out of points, and thought Spellcraft and Use Magic Device were more important mechanically.
I think this system would give all of the players a couple of extra toys to play with in specific circumstances that would enhance the fun, without being imbalancing. ("Hey! I've got 'Lore (famous Hellknights).' Have I heard of Paralictor Glorio before?")
Huh. Great concept, although some of their background skill choices seem kind of odd-- Handle Animal is useful to druids and rangers, Perform is vital to bards, and I've definitely used Sleight of Hand in other campaigns to make money. All of these have definite gameplay uses. But for the others, it's true that they rarely come up in a game but would absolutely be things certain characters would be good at.
Also, Zee I hope you don't think I'm deliberately stealing your thunder just now in the game. I just haven't hardly used any of Nalathi's bardic abilities, aside from Arcane Strike and a few cantrips, and thought this was a fun and in-character opportunity.
I thought it was a great use of fascinate :)
Looking forward to see what comes of it...
Also (as a/the resident skill monkey) I have no objection to bonus skill points (and have invested a number of ranks already in some of these less-than-optimal skills)
@Nalathi: It's not that the background skills rarely come up in play,, but that they rarely come up in combat. They are also the kind of skills that players take to flesh out a PC's back-story.
Hey, just wanted to say sorry for the radio silence. I'll have a post up later today.
I have read up on Background Skills and I see no reason why we shouldn't implement the option... Feel free to retcon 6 ranks of Background Skill (no more than 3 ranks in any one skill please)... As per levelling, please highlight in the discussion thread what skills you have selected...
I think I will probably implement the automatic bonus progression system from Unchained as well... I won't go into details but generally:
In order to face the dangers of the game, characters in the Pathfinder RPG normally need items that grant bonuses to their statistics. With this variant, characters instead gain those bonuses automatically as they increase in level, allowing them to use magic item slots for more interesting items
If we did go with it, you would all instantly gain a +1 resistance bonus to all saves... And then, at Level 4, a +1 enhancement bonus to weapons / armour... Etc, etc...
Thoughts?
In a party with a bunch of people using less common weapons (longspear, trident, bladed scarf) that seems like a really helpful system... My only concern is how it will/would effect loot drops? Is that going to force you to make a lot of changes to the type or amount of loot we're getting throughout the AP?
regarding background skills: I'll drop 3 ranks into lore[pathfinder society]. Part of my background is that I worked in the archives and have read through an enormous number of field reports, so that new skill is perfect for me (there wasn't any good way to replicate that before). The other 3 will most likely go towards knowledges, but I'll post exactly when I have a little more time.
Promised Update:
I'll make knowledge[history] my other background skill (with 3 ranks in it).
That frees up the 3 normal ranks I'd already put in there... I'll reassign those points, 1 each, to disable device, know:geography, and know:local.
I think the background skills would be better if their scope was smaller on "usual" skills like Appraise, Handle animal and so on, just like the Lore skill is a specialized Knowledge...
Something like Appraise(armor and weapons/jewellery/fine wines..), Handle animals (dog/farm animals/ snakes), Knowledge history and geography would be limited to one country or one specific era, Linguistic should allow you to speak only (or you should use some "pidgin" langages that could be understood with DC 15)
Thats just my own two cents.
If we must take some background skills, here would be my selection
Know-History (Famous battles) 2
Appraise (Armor/Weapons) 2
Lore.... 2
Hmm, I'll have to think about it. We'll see what I can come up with.
Since I already had four ranks in Background skills (3 in Sleight of Hand, 1 in Perform (oratory)), with GM approval here's how I'll spend my skill points:
2 - Perform (oratory) (Background skill)
1 - Acrobatics
1 - Escape Artist
2 - Diplomacy
Zee's new skill allocations...
Spending three background skill points that had already been spent on one rank each in Know (geography), Know (history) and Profession (fortune-teller); spending the other three into three ranks in Sleight of Hand.
This gives three additional adventuring points; bumping up Bluff from 1 rank to 3 ranks, and Diplomacy from 2 ranks to 3.
(I also noticed that I'd miscalculated on a couple of other skills, and adjusted them down accordingly.)
Note to all, I will be re-engaging the GM Zed gears shortly... If you folks want to wrap up this bit of story in Sandpoint then I will pick up on Monday... Lots of business travel on Monday and Tuesday so plenty of time to write....
I think Briana and I are pretty well set. Sorry if we kind of took over a bit there (although, in fairness, you pushed us to it).
I took the liberty of compiling Teldon and Briana's Unexpected Night as a google doc in case anyone wants to read it all in chronological order without any spoilers or other plots (and largely for ease of reference if I want to look back over the story later).
I haven't forgotten about this. I need to find where I saved Joanna's Hero Lab file so I can make the edits.
Yeah, closing the door in her face was kind of fun... Teldon's grown a lot in the past couple weeks when it comes to interacting with people (now that he's figured out how to apply his intellect to it), but underneath that new ability is the same awkward man who doesn't always get the expectations and cultural norms...
Part of me kind of wants to include inner monologue/thoughts about how he's processing those interactions, but I'm afraid his consciously considering each choice might seem really manipulative...
Naughty Teldon ought to be spanked.
It was just a gentle kiss on the forehead.
Ha- it wasn't just a kiss on the forehead...
It was (as Teldon points out over breakfast):
- blushing last night (parallel to how T and B were)
- jokes about hogging covers
- remarks about looking forward to sharing a bed when everyone parted
- both women are in remarkably good moods in the morning
- then there was "just a gentle kiss on the forehead"
- and then you asked if he enjoyed his night "too" implying that you had really enjoyed your night...
It's not Teldon's fault if the conclusion pointed to by all this evidence is inaccurate, lol.
what can i say, Teldon has a naughty mind.
And so ought to be spanked.
All, just to let you know, Teldon has raised the idea of Variant Multiclassing from Pathfinder Unchained... I have no problems with people using it as an option...
It will require some minor rebuilding for any who are interested (since you had to give up your 3rd level feat)... Thankfully, I have a feat I've never used before so the difference for me will completely unnoticeable :)
I'm remodeling a bathroom right now but (as long as I get home at a reasonable time) I'll update my sheet tonight. The only change at this point will be that I lose the extra inspiration feat and gain an arcane pool.
It's tempting, but I've decided that in order to make swashbuckler a Variant Multiclassing class (it isn't listed as one, but I'm sure Zed would be willing work something out), I'd probably have to lose all but the Swashbuckler Finesse ability. And I'm rather fond of adding +1d6 to my skill checks now and then :-). So I'll pass.
Teldon is updated with the Magus variant multiclassing...
He lost the Extra Inspiration feat (dropping him from 8 uses/day to 5);
And he gained an Arcane Pool (with 5 points) that he can use to enhance a weapon.
He had also bought 2 magic weapon oils while already 3rd level, which would no longer make any sense, so I replaced them with potions of speak with animals and touch of the sea.
This is tempting. I'm thinking of Zee maybe going with variant multiclassing into cleric of Desna. I think that might be a good synergy with her existing powers and fits nicely with how I've been role playing her. Tomorrow, I'll see what a rebuild looks like.
I'm don't like, and won't use Unchained Pathfinder, will that be a problem?
Arsith - I think all of the unchained rules that we will use in this campaign are completely optional - you can Variant multiclass or choose not to - equally, if you want to select some background skills (you already have) then cool... Otherwise, no problems...
As previously suggested, I will probably go with automatic bonus progression when you next level... Although I am waiting to see the impact of the rule in my other games...
I'm ok with background skills.
What I don't like is the automatic bonus progression: as I understand it (but maybe mistakenly) , it is as if you got a +1 weapon/armor by level 4 automatically, a +1 on all saves automatically by level 5...
As I took the Forgepriest archetype to build permanent magic weapons/armor for the group, I fear I'll feel useless.
Besides, some spells at low level wont be as useful either, like Magic Vestment
Hmmm, yes I can see that the problem there... Let's not go with the automatic bonus progression then.... It's useful in my more dungeon delve games but not here!!!
Zee- travel is a great domain for VMC Cleric, especially for a varisian wanderer (I was working on a potential character for a home game who would have been a very traditional varisian magus and I was looking at doing that with him)
The Travel domain is exactly what I was thinking.
I've updated Zee's character sheet accordingly.
I dropped her third-level feat, which had been Extra Hex (Misfortune).
In its place, she has the Travel domain granted powers of +10 movement rate, and Agile Feet.
She also has auras of Good and Chaos as a 3rd-level cleric, and can spontaneously cast cure spells instead of her prepared witch spells.
If a character's primary class is a spellcaster of any stripe, and VMCs into cleric, sorcerer, oracle, or witch, that character gains limited access to the bonus spells associated with the VMC class domain, bloodline, mystery, or patron, respectively.
The class feature would put the spells of the domain/bloodline/mystery/patron onto the character's spell list for the primary class. It would not grant the spells themselves; just the opportunity to learn them normally, as a member of the primary class. When cast, these spells would be arcane or divine, as per the primary class. This ability would also allow use of spell trigger or spell completion items of that spell without having to make Use Magic Device checks.
Only spells of a spell level that the primary character class can cast would be considered to be on the spell list. For example, a Ranger/VMC Sorcerer would consider his bloodline spells of 1st through 4th level to be on the Ranger spell list. Bloodline spells of 5th or higher would not be, as a Ranger cannot cast spells of 5th level or higher.
I'll let you know how this goes, but I don't foresee a problem with that expansion.
very interesting RP with Joanna.
It must be the most profound things I've ever wrote for a character.
Ahh, it's not a brand new relationship if you don't make at least one person uncomfortable with PDA, right? ;)
Lol, my thoughts exactly. Teldon is fairly perceptive but I think this is one thing he's going to be too distracted to notice...
Yeah- I was in 9 games when things in RL got crazy and this was the only one that I couldn't bring myself to walk away from. There were a couple of others that were tough to leave but this was the only one I didn't.
I'm also playing in a Carrion Crown game. I'm GMing two games: Rise of the Runelords and a PFRPG on-the-fly conversion of the AD&D classic I6: Ravenloft.
(And there are some people from this game in both of the games I'm GMing...)
I must say that I've never seen a PbP party cohere as well as this one... although my Runelords game sure comes close!
And will hopefully come closer.
Assuming Gwyn doesn't burn the Rusty Dragon down by accident. ;)
Background skills:
Artistry (Calligraphy)1
Lore (Famous battles) 2
Lore (Magnimar High Society) 2
Appraise (Armor and Weapons) 1
My only other PbP campaign experience was in a group who worked pretty well together (about as well as we do), but the GM threw a hissy-fit after about two months and left. But I've done a fair amount of PbP PFS now, and this group is definitely better than pretty much all of them.
Work travel turned out to be horrendous - precious little internet access and stuck in France for nearly two extra days due to strikes affecting my Eurostar trip - plane back to the UK this evening... Time to catch up with family and sleep and I will get back to normal posting some time tomorrow!!! Thanks everyone for your patience...