Sic Semper Tyrannis! (Thrune's Hell's Rebels Revived)

Game Master GM Aarvid

I've alluded to my preferences on builds, but I'll go ahead and codify everything here.

• Races: All standard races from the Pathfinder Core Rulebook will be allowed. Any other PC race, including custom races, will be considered on a case by case basis. For the most part, races recommended by the Player's Guide will be approved.

• Classes: Any class created by Paizo with the correct errata.

• Alignment: Any non-evil, though bastions of law may have conflicts in rebelling against a legal (though tyrannical) authority.

• Abilities: Characters will be based on the High Fantasy (20 point) buy, found in the PFRPG Core Rulebook on page 16.

• Feats: Any feat created by Paizo with correct errata, within reason. While I'm not opposed to powerful feats (like Leadership), I do have concerns about some of them (like Sacred Geometry). Most are fine, but I do reserve the right to nix one if and when something doesn't pass the sniff test.

• Skills: We will be using the Background Skill system, because it's awesome. This is an urban campaign, and most of you probably either have lived in Kintargo most of your lives, or recently moved here, so you may consider taking a Craft or Profession that suggests what you do when you're not rebelling against a lawful authority.

• Traits: Characters will start with two traits. One must be a campaign trait listed in the Hell's Rebels Player's Guide. I like the Drawback system, so if you'd like to have a third, feel free to utilize that. Additionally, while this isn't a Trait, you also need to pick one of the reasons you're at the Aria Park protest, which will give you some bonuses in the opening scene.

• Hit Points: Characters will start out with Maximum hit points for their class at 1st level. After 1st level characters will take the average each level.

• Starting Gold: 150 gp.

• Background/Personality: I'd like to know a bit about each of your characters - I'm not looking for a novel, but a bit about your life before the protest and what-not would be excellent.

Mk, Amalie is (I think) updated properly. I have to purchase all her equipment yet, so that is still outstanding. I'll deal with that tonight.

How do you want to handle the bardic Versatile Performance?

I plan to take Versatile Performance (Sing) at lvl 2, so by RAW I would be wasting a skill point to train Bluff at lvl 1 (other than having the skill bonus one level earlier).

At lvl 6 (a long way away in PBP), I will take Versatile Performance (Dance), allowing me to use the bonus for Acrobatics checks. By RAW, I would still have to have 3 ranks of Acrobatics itself to gain the extra bonus to AC when fighting defensively.

Thoughts?

I presume that Perform does not count as a Background skill for bards given the value gained from Versatile Performance.

Woof, today sucked. Finally now just checking in here. Let's tackle these all one at a time.

Amalie: Life oracle's sorta hoss, and it looks like you're angling to do lots of healing. Works for me! Nothing too out of the ordinary there, so I think the only thing I still need from you is the reason for being at the protest.

Arcos: Sweet, vigilante. I haven't had anyone play one yet, and they're sorta perfect for Hell's Rebels. You'll need to delevel him, obviously, and pick one of the reasons for being at the protest, but other than that it looks good.

Felicia: OK, let's talk about the catgirl. I ran the numbers on it, and I think it's definitely a bit higher than the 9RP races. Humanoid , Medium, Normal Speed, Standard Stats, and Standard Languages are all freebies, so the only things we need to price are Clever Cat, Magical Scent and Bonus Feat. Clever Cat is the Skill Bonus trait taken three times, so that's 6 points. Magical Scent is detect magic at will (Constant Spell-Like Divination - 3), plus the Scent trait (4). Bonus Feat is, well, the Bonus Feat trait (4). 6+3+4+4=17 RP. That's significantly higher. I propose one of two things - either cut out about 7 points of RPs from the race, or keep it as is, but to reflect the advantages of the race, I would lower the stat buy you have from 20 to 15. Your call on which one you'd like to do.

Lubella: Lots of mechanical stuff! I was wondering why your Dawnflower Dervish was looking at Perform (sing) to go with your battle dance ability. I guess you want to be a triple threat! I think there's no need to place a point into Bluff at 1st level if you're taking VP (Sing) at 2nd, so probably best to place that elsewhere. And yeah, I agree - you'd need actual ranks in Acrobatics to gain the fighting defensively bonuses that come with it. Versatile Performance just lets you make the rolls. And as for Perform as a bard Background Skill? Nah, that's fine - no change. Perform remains a bard BS.

Let me know if you have additional questions!

Lubella's Versatile Performances will be based on descriptions of Sarenrite religious services: "Services are joyous events incorporating singing and dancing, accompanied by upbeat music; they always take place outside and during daylight hours."

Sing(1st), Dance(2nd) and Percussion(3rd)

Reassigned skill point out of Bluff.

I see where I screwed up. A, I for some reason only counted clever cat once, and B, Catfolk get scent to replace a 1 RP trait, so I assumed they were equal. (Huh, guess that means scent catfolk are 12rp)

How about this, as I realize her initial purpose changed when the new archetype came out. How about I drop the bonus feat and all of my skill bonuses in favor of Skilled (4 RP)? That keeps her human heritage and the quirky SLA, while dropping six points.

Lubella is beginning to sound like an old school pentacostal xD.

I'll be "staying up on current events". As a healer and not wanting to see people hurt unnecessarily, she uses this as an opportunity to get information on who could use some help, and wants to try keeping civilian bloodshed to a minimum. +2 Diplo/Perform during the protest.

@Lubella: I'm on board with your read for the Dawnflower Performance skills now, and I see you've got your reason for protesting. I think you're good to go!

@Felicia: That works for me. 11RP is close enough too call it good, and I like the concept behind Magical Scent. I don't mind if you keep a copy of her on MWeavers, but since they recently lost a metric crapton of data, redundancy might be a good call - please consider adding Felicia's info to your profile as well. Other than that, I think we need Traits for her as well as a reason to protest.

@Amalie: Sounds cool. I think you're good to go as well.

@Arcos: I'm going to give him a poke to direct him toward this thread.

@Everyone: I'm working on figuring out Roll20 - I've never used it as a GM before, but if I'm going to run this as an AP, I kinda need to solve the digital miniatures problem. I plan on doing pretty much all of the RP and mechanics here, since the boards can handle just about everything except combat positioning perfectly fine.

Additionally, I wanted to touch base with you all on what sort of feeling we're going for in the narrative. As I'm sure you can guess, since you're going up against the Thrice-Damned House of Thrune, they will be doing some rather despicable things to people. Hell is not a nice place, and House Thrune has learned their lessons well from their infernal masters. However, I also don't want to make my players too uncomfortable, so if there's anything in particular that you'd like me to avoid, let me know. Since I suspect it will top the list of most reasonable people, I'll let you know that sexual violence will not be happening in my narrative, so if there's anything else that is a bridge too far, let me know.

On a similar note, what's everyone's comfortability on sex and language? Obviously the board's filters will prevent anything too graphic - and I have no intention of writing slashfic - but I figure I'd like to know where everyone stands before we really get rolling.

Personally the only other bit of violence I'd like to steer away from a bit is excessive detail on "bad nasty things" toward kids. They are evil, and I get that, so I understand that it may well happen, but excess detail in that avenue would be too much for me. Everything else, however, is fair game in my book.

Comfortability on the sex/language front for me is well above what this board's filters will catch. I agree that writing slashfic isn't a goal of mine (shoot, there are other sites where I'd go for that anyway).

Also, I finally sorted out Amalie's equipment. I updated it into her sheet earlier today.

As for Roll20, I use it pretty frequently as a player and as a DM, so if you have questions don't hesitate to ask.

Violence of any sort towards children is definitely on my radar as well, and probably should have been included in that initial post. Consider that done.

Detailed description of torture is something that I would personally prefer to steer away from. On sex/language, anything that is OK with the board's filters should be fine.

@Everyone: I'm working on figuring out Roll20 - I've never used it as a GM before, but if I'm going to run this as an AP, I kinda need to solve the digital miniatures problem. I plan on doing pretty much all of the RP and mechanics here, since the boards can handle just about everything except combat positioning perfectly fine.

FWIW some people use Google Docs for maps/minis; it seems to work OK in the PFS game I'm playing in. I don't know enough to give the pros and cons, though.

@Lubella: Got it.

@Amalie: Sweet, I'll definitely be picking your brain here. In fact, I might as well use your expertise to help with this. I'm currently trying to get the first map to load into the map, but it appears to be too large to fit within the map space. Is there some way to increase that?

I the upper right hand corner there is a button that looks like a sheet of paper/ new file icon. That opens up your pages. From there, you can click on the page you are trying to add stuff to. When you select the page a small cog will show up on it. That's the page settings. If you go in there you can set how many squares by how many squares large the space should be. Then it's just a matter of aligning everything to the grid, which is a different thing. :)

Hey all, the site didn't notify that there were new posts, but in any case I'm here now. I can have Arcos updated by later today, and he was at the protest for a couple reasons. In his social identity, he was just there to observe, but he mainly went to gather intel and to be there in case the Blue Warlock needed to make an appearance. As for the subject, I'm in agreement with everything said so far. A bit of despicability is fine, but nothing too excessive or explicit. Sticking with site guidelines is fine by me.

@ Arcos: Note that the specific Reasons to Protest listed in the Player's Guide give mechanical benefits during the protest itself.

edit: It's too bad that there isn't a way (as far as I know), to follow a thread and get an e-mail notification when there's a new post (like you can in the Giant in the Playground forums).

I'm not quite sure what mine would qualify as, but the best fits seem to be tagging along or meeting a contact.

I've updated my stats, the updated version is in the alias.

@Amalie: AHA! That's the bit I kept missing. I knew there had to be a way to adjust the map size, but the documentation/tutorial must have glossed over that. Thanks so much! :D

@Arcos: I wouldn't worry too deeply into the reason - it really doesn't have a great deal of effect on the campaign beyond the first scene, so I wouldn't agonize over the decision too much. Just a few quick questions about the build. Arcos' alignment is LN; is the Blue Warlock's also LN? Also, I think d20PFSRD lost the Obscurity social talent - what does that do again?

Ah, Hero Lab didn't show the Blue Warlock alignment, which is Neutral Good. I forget the exact mechanics of Obscurity, but it essentially is the opposite of Renown, instead of making your social identity fancy and flashy, you instead blend in with the masses, I believe getting a hefty disguise bonus to appear as a normal, law-abiding citizen.

Hey guys, I had an unexpected screwy day or two, and I apologise. I'm close to good now though. Glad you're cool with the revised race and yes, redundancy does seem like a good idea now lol. I lost like twenty sheets. I'll update everything in a day or so when my PC works. I forget her traits but she's mischievous, so she's probably looking to cause trouble at the protest.

I have very few no-go's, especially since real world religion isn't a thing in game. I for one hope to get Felicia laid, just not too graphically ;)

I've actually had to teach two new GM's from my meatspace group how to use roll20 in just the past week haha. I'm happy to help if you need me.

@Arcos: Yeah, that was my recollection on Obscurity as well. If you could provide some truncated rules for it when you have a moment (or, failing that, put the full rules behind a spoiler), then we don't have to worry about the availability of online sources.

@Felicia: No worries - my life's crazy right now as well. I'm in the process of moving within the city I live in, so my life is all about boxes at the moment when I'm not at work. As for sex, well, Paizo has never really shied away from the sexual preference of NPCs, and if any of you are interested in pursuing someone, well, that's on the table. (Possibly literally, depending on the NPC, I suppose.)

@Arcos: I found the old d20PFSRD site, with all the old data. The vigilante page is here. Since Obscurity uses the Renown rules to determine where you don't need to make your Disguise rolls to appear as your social identity, we need to determine which of Kintargo's districts that is. Pages 17 and 19 of the Player's Guide has a one sentence brief on each of the districts. A bookish scribe like Arcos would not go amiss in Villegre, for example.

Villegre sounds just fine to me. It is quite fitting for a scribe.

Do we have an expected start time for this game? Lubella is ready for revolution!

I think I'm just waiting on Felicia to update her character for Hell's Rebels. I think it's currently geared for some Iron Gods game.

Yeah sorry I've had a crazy week trying to land a new job I'll fix it from the hotel tonight if I can

Ick, that sucks. Best of luck on that.

Gonna go with Honorable Champion and Star struck for my traits. Dunno who for my idol though. Jackdaw makes more sense by flavor, but Strea has the right mechanical bonus. rrgh.
I'll be looking for a contact or looking for my idol depending on which idol I choose. Same bonuses either way. Hope to get the profile soon, but I'm goin to bed rn.

I think I got most of it. Once I get question answered, we're good to begin I believe.

I've answered it, so I think we're very close to starting. I need to invite you all to the game - what are your Roll20 usernames?

Mine is Simon G.

Actually, I think I found a better way to resolve this. Check your Inboxes for details!

I've joined the Roll20 Game.

I think at this point, we're down to just minor details on character stuff, so I'm going to go ahead and start writing the initial scene for the game. We can finish any lingering character choices as we get the ball rolling.

Let's do this thing!

Time for Revolution!

I didn't realize that the start of the AP was so soon after the Night of Ashes. I'll have to assume that the temple in Korvosa learned about Shensen's disappearance by magical communication. In any case, Lubella's training will have been very brief!

I should have time to post her backstory and final stuff tonight. I'm so excited to finally be playing!

FYI, I'm finalizing my move into my new place this weekend, so I don't anticipate moving this story forward until at least Monday. If anything stands in the way with that plan, I'll let you know.

That's OK by me I'll be at a Twenty one Pilots concert tomorrow and driving up there and back around it lol

lol It looks like Lubella spotted some troublemakers!

Felicia would also get a +2 for flanking on her last attack, although she probably hits anyway.

Within 30', shouldn't Arcos' Mystic Bolts (ranged) be +3 to hit and 1d6+1 to damage? Or am I misunderstanding the rules?

Ooh thanks for that! I didn't have time to look at the map so I missed it :)

@Amalie: Note that Supernatural abilities (like Channel Energy) generally don't provoke Attacks of Opportunity in any case.

@DM Barzillai Thrune: Just checking - does the area around still count as difficult terrain?

It does. The dottari are still struggling to quell the riot. I'll let you know if that changes.

*nods* Figured if I noted that her safe curing negated any AoOs anyway, it would make sure there was no wasted efforts or rolls. :)

I'm waiting for the thug's actions before posting Lubella's turn.