Strange Aeons (Inactive)

Game Master nomadicc

Starting up the discussion thread to give us a place to hash out character creation and campaign details. Take a look at the Strange Aeons Players Guide for some character build suggestions and campaign traits.

Play-by-post can be a grind at times with large groups and combat mechanics, so I want to run this a bit differently, focusing on the campaign's mystery and horror elements and, while certainly not eliminating combat entirely, make the set pieces manageable for a small party... and rewarding ingenuity in avoiding or turning confrontations without combat.

I will use the alternate fear, sanity and Unchained disease and poison rules. Taking a look at the Wound Threshold rule too. Let me know what you think.

So i've been primarily looking at an half-elf (with drow descendent) Empiricist with a possible gunslinger or swashbuckler splash for some martial prowess. Big hat, scarf, coat, lots of pockets. Int focused ... skillz. Swapped mind trait.

Also perhaps a psychic .. lots of stuff I need to read here, but abomination discipline with mutation mind archetype. Sorta dark phoenix craziness.

Glanced at bloodrager, spiritualist and occultist. None of those grabbed me. Still may take a look at shaman, arcanist and inquisitor (and some of the recommended archetypes, although many I don't have in Hero Lab)

I've been thinking investigator for this AP, but the more I think about it the more I'm leaning towards a full caster build. Here's what I'm considering so far:

Samsaran Psychic (Amnesiac): Knowledge skills, debuffer, party face. Struggles with memories of his current and past lives. Uptight professor type. The archetype provides AP appropriate flavor and provides spellcasting flexibility.

Damphir Spiritualist (Fractured Mind): Struggles with proving his humanity. His phantom manifests as a vampiric alter ego. Life long criminal whom strives for redemption despite his occasional lapses into depravity. Has sanity issues.

Drow Noble Arcanist (Occultist/School Savant[diviner]): focuses on summoning and divination spells. Exiled drow whom detests her culture and seeks atonement for past sins.

Any initial thoughts? Let me flesh the builds out a bit further.

Cool! Pretty much anything along the lines of those suggested in the guide would fit great. The investigator would go nicely, and any of the occult classes. I'd just ask that you two work out something complementary to each other. I will probably work in long-term NPCs to help, depending on your interactions, etc. Don't worry about healing, necessarily, if neither of you want to play a healer class.

I like both of the first 2 ... I think they would complement the Empiricist above well. I'm gonna put some effort into UMD as well, so we can use a lot of one off wands and scrolls etc.

The psychic seems to fit right in, easily so. We should balance knowledge skills smartly if you go this route and I take the investigator.

I also like the Spiritualist as a Charismatic caster plus the internal disharmony works well too (at least as far as I can tell from the PG).

Yeah, I'm thinking a splash in swashbuckler (picaroon). The whole sword and gun thing really works for me in this AP idea.

Draft profile is here.

20-point buy.

Average starting gold for gear purchases.

Here I am after much gnashing of teeth.

Think I'm gonna swap my first level feat for Fey Foundling. Working my character background. Fits well.

-Posted with Wayfinder

Wow, just read about skill unlocks. These are awesome. Make sure our psychic has ranks in some of these. Seriously thought about taking the psychic impressions feat just to get them myself.

Occult Skill Unlocks

Skills I currently have ranks in

Climb
Disable
Know Arcana
Know Dungeoneering
Know Religion
Perception
Sense Motive
Spellcraft
Stealth
UMD

I think we both need stealth. Can swap out knowledge skills as needed. Think we still need nature, local and planes at the moment. Get others as needed. Maybe a linguistics as well.

Sweet discussions we're having here.

Background and Appearance up. Not defining personality, I want to develop that as we play. Background incorporates fey foundling, mind swapped, amnesia, knowledge skills, gun and where he came up with Aklo.

All really disjointed and vague.

Also, since this is Cthulu-esque, should we build backup characters?

Haha, nice... its Cthulhu themed, but not meant to be a DM slaughterfest.

Aenian's build looks good, as far as I can tell. Keeping the background details vague is good, given you don't really know who you are (or were) before the campaign starts.

Once you guys hash out skills and we get a final build from Charlie, we can press!

Haven't made much progress - been swamped. I'll post more tomorrow.

Ok, I think I'm nearing completion on the crunch. I'll add some personality, appearance and background info tomorrow.

Cool! That avatar is awesome and ridiculous! XD

Do you guys feel ready enough to start things? We can always tweak stats, etc later if you find something off.

I'm ready. Charlie and I discusses skills over lunch on Thursday. We will need to work on his stealth somehow and carrying things is going to be a problem. May need to invest in ant haul potions/scrolls as well as heavy recruitment.

I couldn't find any samsaran avatars, but this one captures the dark vibe that I was looking for.

I think we're ready.

I've made some last minute adjustments:

Swapped a couple of knowledge skills for social skills (I'll add back the knowledge skills next level).

I swapped my single spell slot from color spray to charm person. As a general strategy, Ven will often be attempting to charm NPCs to be his minions for protection, etc. I've also swapped his phrenic amplification to over-powering mind, which increases the DC of mind affecting spells. I've also adjusted his spell focus to enchantment.

As an amnesiac, Ven may attempt to "recall" half of his highest spell level once per hour. Basically, this allows flexibility in selection of some of his spells. At first level, he has one first level spell that he may attempt to recall as needed (probably color spray, but could be any spell on his spell list).

Dave, can you add a google docs spreadsheet to the campaign tab for us to edit, add loot, write down notes?

If you can set up the doc, I can paste the link.

Ok, will do later tonight.

-Posted with Wayfinder

Delta interview is done, but retirement thrash next week, and holidays after that. I'm predicting things will be slow for the next week or two. After (if) things settle down, I hope to be able to post more regularly.

Ping for the spreadsheet... I'll link it if you send me the address.

Also, do either of you know if I can give permissions to upload journal stuff in Roll20?

Here's a simple loot spreadsheet.

To my knowledge only the Roll 20 game owner can post to the journal.

To my knowledge only the Roll 20 game owner can post to the journal.

Yeah, I couldn't find an option toggle anywhere. Was just wondering if it was well-hidden.

Can I get you guys to calculate and track sanity score, edge and threshold numbers?

Sanity Score: Your sanity score is equal to the sum of your mental ability scores (Charisma, Intelligence, and Wisdom) minus any ability damage taken to those ability scores.

Sanity Threshold: Your sanity threshold is equal to the bonus of your highest mental ability score minus any ability damage to that score (minimum 0). When you experience a sanity attack, if the sanity damage from that attack equals or exceeds your sanity threshold, you gain a madness, either lesser or greater depending on the relation of your current sanity damage and your sanity edge (see below).

If your sanity threshold is 0, you always suffer a madness upon taking 1 or more points of sanity damage.

Sanity Edge: Your sanity edge is equal to 1/2 your sanity score. When you experience a sanity attack that causes you to gain a madness (see Sanity Threshold), compare your total amount of sanity damage to your edge to determine the potency of the madness. If your current sanity damage is less than your sanity edge, then you manifest a lesser madness.

I've added to my stats bar.

Sanity added

Looks like your Sanity scores are off... should be the sum total of your Int + Wis + Cha scores, so likely something in the 30-50 range.

Ah, I added bonuses

-Posted with Wayfinder

Updated

Also, I've filled out the loot spreadsheet to date

Been exploring my character advancement and I cannot make gunslinger work without Charisma and I cant rebuild the character in any way to make charisma viable.

That said, I'm gonna switch to a melee based plan and go inspired blade splash. No stat changes or anything required of the character, however I was wondering if I could swap the trait Resolve of the Rejected (based around being a gunslinger) for Accelerated Drinker?

Also, for purposes of planning, is this an adventure where we will be able to purchase stuff or do we need to consider crafting? Since it's 2 of us and we are feat starved classes, I was hoping not, but I want to ensure we have flexibility!

That's fine... we're still early enough along that minor (or even major) changes are no big deal.

Once you get out of Briarstone, you will have plenty of opportunities to buy gear. Crafting won't be required.

Well, if we want to do major changes, I could swap my build to take my splash level now instead of at level 3, giving us a bit more combat power and a little less skill power?

May change up combat to be more than us firing crossbows and retreating.

-Posted with Wayfinder

Your call... if you pick up a melee buddy, will help your front presence but then you get the ranged-melee penalty.

Let me build the option and post it here as a side by side comparison for Venn and I. Ultimately at level 3 the character will be the exact same.

-Posted with Wayfinder

On Roll20, I added brief write-ups on the NPCs you've interacted with so far. You both have edit access, so feel free to add/change notes as you desire.

Uploaded Nasya's sketch map to the Roll20 journal.

Here's the alternate option with 5 points of panache. Note, disable device and trapfinding go to shizzit.

Added an XP tally to the main page. I don't really use experience points in the other games I run, since PbP are hard to play through every planned encounter. We'll see how it works -- if it becomes too odd, especially with 2 PCs, I'll scrap it.

Nudge!

So, since my sanity damage was equal/greater than my sanity threshold, I gain a madness?

At least as I read the rules.

In an effort to be more combat capable, and since I think we're close to leveling, I will take my swashbuckler level early and would like to swap Fey Foundling for Fencing Grace. Didn't even use the extra +2 hit points when I drank my extract!

Congrats! You guys have enough XP for 2nd level!

Given that you are essentially a half-party, take max hit points at each level.

I'm still trying to adjust the combat encounters so that they are fun/challenging without being overwhelming. It doesn't help that the developers put some ridiculous foes at the front of this adventure, tough even for a full party. As we've seen, one solid hit or crit, and you guys are out -- being a bit on the squishy side too -- which is not very fun. 1st level sucks... I figure this will normalize a bit as you guys get a few levels.

If you want to re-wicker feats and build points, you can do so for free. In game, its easy to retcon as a mixed up memory that has just come back to you.

Any feedback on running the duo campaign? Anything to make the game more playable/fun?

I'm happy with it. Forcing me to think of other things and the fear is real. Always hesitant to move forward.

-Posted with Wayfinder

Taking 1 level of Inspired Blade and retraining fey foundling for fencing grace.

only really gets effective once I find a rapier, then becomes +5 to hit/+3 damage with that weapon + panache recharge on criticals.

5 panache, most of it will be used for Opportune Parry and Strike or like inspiration and gaining 1d6 to skills.

Gained +1 in a bunch of new skills to get the class bonus: literally my entire screen is blue on Hero Lab now. Added +2 for Disable and Stealth.

@Nomad: does the paranoia have the 2d6 day onset (building via Role playing I'd assume) or is it immediate?

With the haversack, I can carry all my gear and stay light encumbered, so nothing needs to be left behind any more.