Sigma and Co.'s Reign of Winter

Game Master Justin Harrell 615

@ Peter - funny you should ask this. In my home game kingmaker campaign, we had a warpriest who's sacred weapon was shields and dual wielded them (one was for throwing, the other was for smashing). The way we ruled it there, and how I'll rule it here, is that you're perfectly fine dual wielding shields; however, you can only add the greater shield bonus to your AC.

For example, say down the line you have a throwing and smashing shield and the throwing shield grands a total of +5 to ac and smashing is +4, you only add the +5 to your AC. Once you throw it, unless its returning, your AC goes down by 1 since you still have your smashing shield.

hope that wasn't too confusing.

@GM Sigma awesome that would be fair
@DoubleGold my bad they would go down to five, and I would create a backstory that would justify a five in all those stats.

.. he snorted a vial of green slime? ;)

thought some alchemist's fire was dwarven fire whiskey?

Just sayin', Peter, it's generally not your character building skills that will get you into a PbP, it's your ability to make your character's character come to life. It's generally a show of good faith to come with at least a simple backstory for a character, because it lets the DM know who your character is, instead of just how hard he can hit stuff or what fighting style he'll use.

Just a tip from somebody who's applied to a lot of PbP games. :)

Keep in mind peter, playing a monster race will have you treated as a monster race by NPCs. I'm not saying don't play an orc or that playing an orc will hurt your chances of being selected, I'm saying that if you are selected expect hostility from NPCs cause you're an orc.

came across a grumpy caster?

I was thinking that is was more that just wasn't what he was blessed with. As a young kid he was clearly the most athletic and strongest in his clan slash tribe but instead of using that power to bully other kids as most of the other orcs in the tribe did he was a little softer and gentler. He stood up for the little guy. Even now in battle he prefers to take hit rather than deal them out. he will go into the center of battle an absorb blows so that his comrades can gain a more advantageous position. unfortunately he isn't always great at orating his gentler side mostly because he can only speak in grunts because he never learned any languages (feral). that's the basic idea at least may need some deeper thought and a little revising but I just thought of this idea for this character this morning wanted to make sure I worked out all the kinks in his personality sorry for this wall of text too.

There you go now expand on that.

Just sayin', Peter, it's generally not your character building skills that will get you into a PbP, it's your ability to make your character's character come to life. It's generally a show of good faith to come with at least a simple backstory for a character, because it lets the DM know who your character is, instead of just how hard he can hit stuff or what fighting style he'll use.

Just a tip from somebody who's applied to a lot of PbP games. :)

I second this statement.

another heads up though, some Dms, but not all, frown just for stat dropping even if you have that backstory well written out. Usually though they tell you.

Seranov wrote:

Just sayin', Peter, it's generally not your character building skills that will get you into a PbP, it's your ability to make your character's character come to life. It's generally a show of good faith to come with at least a simple backstory for a character, because it lets the DM know who your character is, instead of just how hard he can hit stuff or what fighting style he'll use.

Just a tip from somebody who's applied to a lot of PbP games. :)

I second this statement.

However, I will add that I have seen a lot of people who are min-maxed like that in a similar manner who were selected and roleplay really well.

another heads up though, some Dms, but not all, frown just for stat dropping even if you have that backstory well written out. Usually though they tell you.

From a PbP standpoint I don't have as much experience with applying for games but as a GM myself I agree with both Seranov and DG. A good backstory can tell me how you are gonna be as a player but how you make your builds can tell me as well.

I'd love to join in on the RoW goodness. Unfortuantely I do not have time to flesh out a character before saturday. What is the deadline for admissions?

I do have two PFS characters that are just running confirmation (for grandfathering purposes) And I think that either of those are good for this. Either a tiefling Bloodrager (Darius) or Delphine the witch. Though I think the latter could play this very well as a half-orc scarred witch.

If those slots are already taken I am interested in picking up a cavalier (with other mounts options for the frozen desert) or an archer inquisitor in that order of preference.

Let me know what the group needs and I can adjust. I want to flesh it out properly and it helps if I know what the group needs in advance ;).

From a PbP standpoint I don't have as much experience with applying for games but as a GM myself I agree with both Seranov and DG. A good backstory can tell me how you are gonna be as a player but how you make your builds can tell me as well.

I agree that the build is important, too (because it lets the DM know what role you want to play, and how you intend to solve the problems he'll put forth) but it's just part of character building. Gii, for example, is more than just a human cleric with the guided hand feat. He's a scholar and an introvert and he always sleeps with at least one of his holy symbols in arm's reach. :)

Nazard's fire-obsessed aasimar wizard here. Demona's history and crunch can all be found in her profile.

This is a totally new character, just over-writing an old character alias from four years ago and reusing the name. Flint and fire sort of go together. None of her previous posts are relevant to her current incarnation.

@Seranov Feinmeir is the same way, he's hell bent on revenge for his son but has the wisdom of age and the morals of a gruff dwarf.

Too late do I realize I've optimized around the frostbite spell in an adventure filled with cold resistant enemies... Challenge accepted.

@ Jolly - Sunday at 8 EDT is the deadline. You're more than welcome to use your PFS characters for this (or a clone of them) but know that you'll get no credit.

@ taco - you have time to fix it if you want.

While deciding what character concept I should go with, I thought it'd be nice to sort through the applicants thus far to make things easier, so here's that info for everyone else's benefit as well. Apologies for any mistakes.

Player/Alias - Character Concept
Seranov/Doctor Gii - Human Male Cleric of Nethys
Fenmeir Azast - Dwarf Male Slayer
Bennevy - Human Male Archaeologist Bard
Arthrax - Human Male Fighter
Sarpadian/Zarsh - Half-Orc Male Invulnerable Rager Barbarian
Kirraak - Strix Male Urban Ranger
Pavaan/Cyithar Tialan - Elf Female Witch
organized/Grok - Half-Orc Male True Primitive Barbarian
Elxurian - Aasimar Female Hospitaler Paladin of Iomedae
Nazard/Demona Flint - Peri-Blooded Aasimar Fire Elemental Specialist Wizard
Digger Chandler - Inquisitor of Groetus
Uncle Taco - Maja Molotov - Human Female Magus/Fighter/White-Haired Witch
Seth86/Yuki Tsune - Kitsune Female Trickster Rogue
Arie IJzer/Jordan D'Aquiterre of Mons Savall - Human Male Sound Striker Bard
Algar/Lysandris Merisiel - Samsaran Female Hedge Witch
Double Gold - Something with guns?
Peter Harrah - Orc Fighter

You're doing Groetus' work, Max.

lots of people already .... :)

Thanks for that Max, I hadn't realized how many people had submitted characters.

@GM Sigma: No problem. Yeah, it's a lot more than I thought!

I'd prefer to avoid too much overlap with other applicants, but this girl's been waiting in my concepts for a while and I think this campaign sounds like a good fit, so I'd like to submit a human female magician/soundstriker bard. I wasn't even aware of the Fire Music feat when I came up with this concept, but that should actually give you a good idea of what I have in mind.

I'd like to start her at "middle age" (35), including the appropriate modifiers to physical and mental ability scores. Would that be ok?

Also, if possible, I'd like to play her as blind (with all appropriate penalties for such). It'd be something she has always lived with, so would you consider allowing blindsight (60 ft.?) to compensate? This also fits with her being a musician, for whom sound is very important, for nearly her entire life.

middleage is fine, but i dunno about the blindsight. I'll have to think that over.

Sure thing. I like to think a bit outside the box sometimes :) I'll go ahead and start on an alias for her and work out the sight/blindness stuff once you've made a decision.

I was actually kind of scared to ask about the age differences cause Feinmeir is suppose to be middle age as well, but didn't know if you would allow that so I put him 2 years younger than middle age for a dwarf. Though I might just keep him there now.

@Max instead of blindsight which is a bit powerful, maybe take blindfight feat?

@Seth86: I'd prefer not to take a feat for a self-imposed penalty if we can work out a fair exchange instead. However, if it were something like the Blingfight feat, or something similar, instead of blindsense, that could work too.

middleage is fine, but i dunno about the blindsight. I'll have to think that over.

Protip: Blindsight 60 ft. would be one of the most insanely overpowered, gamebreakingly strong abilities to award a character. It would allow her to automatically perceive everything with 60 ft. at all times, regardless of concealment, darkness, cover, stealth, or invisibility.

Case in point, a Clouded Vision oracle suffers through massive penalties to receive Blindsight 15 ft. at 15th level.

Just an FYI.

Another idea is to ignore most of the mechanical aspects (this is primarily for flavor, after all) and just make sight-based Perception fail, but allow a bonus on others? I'm open to ideas, and thanks for the advice, The Morphling :)

Options is go look at the oracle curses and see how they handle it?

@ Elxurian - looking over your character, I'm pretty sure you don't get celestial anymore. Scion of Humanity gets rid of it unless you use linguistics to get it back since your more human-like. Also, true speaker gives you two languages per rank in linguistics instead of one not two in addition to the one from the rank. So, unless i'm missing something, you should have three languages instead of five.

Well, let's see. I start with Common, and Celestial is set because of the +1 Int (after all, I may have never picked it up automatically, but there's still a synergy, right?). I get Skald because of the Failed Winter Apprentice trait (due to the communion on the dark ritual), and Infernal/Abyssal because of the linguistics rank, through studies, to be able to gather info from the enemy. So it is correct, right?

@ Max - that's actually what i was thinking of.

@ Elxurian - your right, my bad. need to knock Hallit off your sheet then since the trait gives you only one of the languages

edit: whoops, i just realized i was looking at your lv. 3 character sheet. yeah, everythings fine.

I'm not in there yet, probably because I edited my post :).

Looking at the list I think I will go for the Cavalier/Beast rider. Mounted classes are quite fun, I'm hoping enough of the adventure is outdoors.

I'm not in there yet, probably because I edited my post :).

Looking at the list I think I will go for the Cavalier/Beast rider. Mounted classes are quite fun, I'm hoping enough of the adventure is outdoors.

A good buddy of mine has played this through book 3 and so far most of the adventure is outside. There are long stints of schlepping back and forth across Irrisen. He had a Megaloceros animal companion pulling him in a sleigh for most of book 2. A mounted class would actually do very well for this campaign.

You aren't going giving out credit Sigma? You know you can even if you use your own set of rules.

I would think to get credit it has to follow PFS rules all together. from character creation to what I myself do.

You can run it in "Campaign mode" and get PFS credit. You basically run it however the heck you want with whatever characters you want and the chronicles go to PFS legal characters.

It's basically free stuff.

A common misconception. If you read one of those pfs manuals of an ap closely it says that you can do it either in total pfs rules OR with house rules as long as you play certain sections. These sections are often dungeons or challenging areas like enemy bases.

hrm... and I'd get credit too since im GMing it i assume? just outta curiosity, what benefit do you get? I mean, your character's tied in to the campaign so you can't use it in public games or anything like that.

You get the chronicles, which you apply to a separate PFS character. You would get the chronicles as GM, too.

The download with the chronicles and the rules are over in the Additional Resources page under Reign of Winter.

I'll go look at it now.

Jolly Roger wrote:

I'm not in there yet, probably because I edited my post :).

Looking at the list I think I will go for the Cavalier/Beast rider. Mounted classes are quite fun, I'm hoping enough of the adventure is outdoors.

A good buddy of mine has played this through book 3 and so far most of the adventure is outside. There are long stints of schlepping back and forth across Irrisen. He had a Megaloceros animal companion pulling him in a sleigh for most of book 2. A mounted class would actually do very well for this campaign.

Ah good to know, thanks! Looking forward to making a mounted tanky guy.

Just to throw my 2cp in here. I'd love if this character got PFS credit for this adventure. I have another version of her in PFS and it would be great if she got boons or whatever for this.

Dotting for interest. It looks like even with all the applicants, no one has submitted a druid yet, so I may throw my holly wreath into the ring! (^_^)

I don't see why PFS characters can't get credit then. I noticed though that under additional resources it says that one weapon isn't legal, yet the chronicle sheet lists the weapon as a reward. Would the PFS character still be able to use it or no?

I guess loot is where it breaks down to my issue. would the PFS character still have to buy the item even though they got it? Would say the fighter get the weapon but then the PFS character be able to buy the same weapon due to the chronicle sheet? I'm really new to PFS stuff, having not even finished my first PFS pbp game.

I don't see why PFS characters can't get credit then. I noticed though that under additional resources it says that one weapon isn't legal, yet the chronicle sheet lists the weapon as a reward. Would the PFS character still be able to use it or no?

You can get it legally IF you have that chronicle.

GM Sigma wrote:

I don't see why PFS characters can't get credit then. I noticed though that under additional resources it says that one weapon isn't legal, yet the chronicle sheet lists the weapon as a reward. Would the PFS character still be able to use it or no?

You can get it legally IF you have that chronicle.

but would they just get it or would they still have to buy it with gold like in normal PFS? like i asked earlier, could a non PFS character and a PFS character both have the same unique item so long as the PFS character buys it via chronicle sheet?

It's not listed as legal UNLESS it's given on a chronicle. It's basically to limit the item to people that earned the chronicle, rather than anyone that just buys the AP book.

Often Paizo holds back additional resources for chronicle rewards.

here's another quick question about playing this for PFS if you guys know. I'm thinking of running this for six players since I've gotten a lot of cool character designs. As such I'll have to mod loot (it always comes down to loot). Do I make notes on the chronicle for this or what?