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You have been at the Acadamae for a few years now teaching or researching in your respective field. One spring afternoon as you retire to your quarters, you find a dove perched on your desk. Around its neck is a red ribbon with a small scroll affixed. Intrigued, you open the scroll. The paper is blank, but a magic mouth appears with the following message, “I wish to grant you power in exchange for services. Present enclosed key at Empty Shell tavern. Sunset tonight. The key is in the dove.
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I’m looking for interest in an all-wizard campaign. This is for ~6 neutral or evil characters (I might consider running an additional table if interest is high enough). Goodie goodie wizards need not apply. Well, I suppose you can be good aligned, as long as you can justify committing a few evil acts (for the greater good, of course).
The campaign will take place in Varisia, and other places around Golarion. You will begin as a 7th level Wizard currently under the employ of the Acadamae, a wizard’s college in the Varisian City of Korvosa. Now the Acadamae doesn’t condone pure evil, but they do put up with a lot of questionable activities in the interest of gaining knowledge and power. If you are the kind of Wizard who would enjoy a high magic, low hitting-things-with-sticks adventure, this might be the campaign for you. Alright, let’s get into the weeds:
Starting Level: 7th
25 point buy
Class: Wizard only, Archetypes OK, no prestige classes.
Race: Any Paizo Race 20 RP or less. Remaining RP can be spent on extra feats at the rate of 5 RP per feat. Extra RP are wasted and cannot be used for anything else. (This will hopefully balance more powerful races.)
Traits: Gain 4 traits and 2 drawbacks. (I like drawbacks for helping define characters, so choose carefully, and use them.)
Feats: Normal feat progression. At 7th level you should have a total of 4 feats plus your bonus wizard feat from 5th level.
Spells: Paizo spells only. Choose your 2 per level plus any 4th level or lower spells you want to buy from other wizards at the Acadamae, as per the rules for copying spells from other wizards’ spellbooks.
Starting Gear: 23,500gp. The Acadamae has just about everything you could want as far as magic items go. If you have crafting feats, we can assume you crafted the items for half price.
Wizardy Shenanigans: It’s all good. Wizards are OP by design, so have at it. You’re all wizards, so feel free to one up each other. You’re all of questionable morality, so you might not want to trust your companions fully. And there’s no barbarian in the party who will get emotional because he’s feeling left behind in the power curve. No barbarians also means that fighting may not be the best solution to every encounter. You will have high intelligence. I expect you to use it.
I want you to have fun in this campaign. It will be full of powerful magic, dangerous, and hopefully enjoyable. If interested, describe how you get the key out of the dove, and make a character.
Dotting while I work in something.
Really interested, to be honest.
Dot. This could be interesting.
Quite interested in this. Time to look through archtypes and schools to figure out what I want. Just to check, but we can't get other things off race builder except extra feats right? Are prestige classes ok or do we have to go with the base wizard all the way?
With an all wizard party I kinda gotta ask, Sacred Geometry or no? I like math and in pbp it is not going to bog things down, but it could be rated as too powerful/silly.
Dotted
All Wizard all the way. No multi-classing (I should have spelled that out). I don't want a well rounded party.
Sacred Geometry is fine. It's exactly the kind of thing a wizard would want to do.
Stick to the Paizo races on this page.
I might just go a charisma focused wizard anyway though... Might make the party somewhat more rounded, at least for skills. I hope that's ok. Though I guess it's just the channeling that scales of charisma eh? So maybe not...
Can we start with already raised undead? If so, how would you like to do that? And how can a Cruoromancer not use the spell Blood Money? It's so fitting for flavor. Not actually sure I want to go down path yet, but even if I don't, I'm sure someone would want to. There aren't that many games you get to play evil wizard in.
Charisma could be useful. UMD, calling outsiders, rolling diplomacy...
Dhampirs, hmm. I'm not sure that blood money will not work. In fact, I think it will. Dhampirs are not immune to strength damage. They are immune to negative energy damage. Since blood money is a transmutation effect, and not a negative energy effect it should still cause dhampirs to take str damage, and thus work. At least that's how I'm ruling it.
And yes, you may start with undead. Just be able to explain how the Acadamae lets you keep them around. What safety precautions do you use? Do you take them out on the town? Remember, you're not an evil wizard king yet. You must be subtle enough to not be ejected from society.
Any way to be able to, in my fluff, turn myself into a Souldoll, with the following mechanics:
Tiny Construct
Vulnerable to Cold, Acid, and Fire damage, Vulnerable to Mind-Affecting effects, -6 str, +2 Int, slow speed, Soul Focus (As with Soulbound Doll ability).
End RP count: (4 RP) (20 RP) (-6 RP) (-? RP) (-3 RP Greater Weakness -4 str -2 dex +2 Int) (-1 RP) (+? RP)
End RP Count: 14 RP or less. I'll leave whatever else to you. Whether I get bonus feats for this I'll leave up to you.
Dot.
Definitely interested.
Thinking an elf Wrath Thassilonian Specialist, obviously focusing on blowing things up.
Maybe Admixture school, to help with resistances.
Vagabond, I'd like to keep the weird races somewhat under control. I'm assuming you are referring to a soulbound doll.
But I do like the concept. I'll tell you what, choose one of the races from the list, take improved familiar. I'll let you choose soulbound doll as your improved familiar. If you want to make the doll more dominant than the master and play as such, that's fine with me.
What's the deadline for applications?
Bigrig, yes obviously focused on blowing things up. :)
Just remember when you thinking of characters, they are teachers at a respectable university. Think of the context in which you practice your arts, namely research or teaching. And while you can be evil, you can't be soooo evil that everyone hates you, or your life will be short. Just keep that in mind before you decide to burn the village to the ground.
Another thing I am considering is a Pact Wizard (conjurer). I think I like this better actually. I'm not sure how exactly it works though. What makes the most sense to me is this: 1. I chose an outsider improved familiar. 2. I then chose a patron of the same type as that familiar. 3. If I pick Sacred Summons I can then use it to summon things of the same type as my familiar. For example picking an Earth Mertphit as familiar (and some elder earth elemental as patron) would let me summon earth elementals as a standard action while chosing a harbringer archon as my familiar (and some archon as my patron) would let me summon lantern archons as a standard action.
Another relevant question for this character would be, can I use the alternate options for summons (those listed in yellow tables on pfsrd) or will there be restrictions on that? It'll make it easier to find matching options for sacred summons for one.
Deadline: Midnight of Jan 4th PST. I'll go over them the 5th, and then we'll move forward.
How do you feel about changing the type of weapons for specific magical weapons?
Specifically, I want the Staff of Entwined Serpents to become a rapier.
Elves are proficient with raipers, and I do intend to use one occasionally.
And having a quarter staff in addition to the rapier invokes too much Gandalf and not enough dexterous warrior-mage (emphasis on the magic part).
Dang, I really wanted to play a Souldoll. Just being an improved familiar isn't what I really want- I want to BE a Soulbound Doll. The only LEGAL way besides making a homebrew race is to either take the beastbound witch archetype, or just handwave it through multiple casting of Polymorph Any Object, which, to be honest, is probably slightly better, but I don't want to spend an hour trying to find the correct path to doing it.
Actually, I could just spend for it to be cast twice on myself, but, personally, I would prefer to not go through that cheese so far ahead of the level it should become available.
As it is, I'm THINKING of playing a Construct Crafter, especially if I go Soulbound Doll. As it is, I'm also thinking about being a Summoning focused character- If that is permitted, may I request some 3.5 alternate class features (They are available for free on the SRD)? More specifically, the Conjurer Rapid Summoning alternate class feature.
Ooo, I like that. I imagine the sword to have some sort of white/black Damascus steel design. Dual snake heads make up the ornate hilt. Much more than an overgrown wand, the sword can be wielded with deadly accuracy as well.
Granted!
That goes for everyone else too. Just please don't go crazy with custom weapons. If you want to convert a staff to another type of weapon, that's OK.
The main problem with soulbound doll is that it's hard to imagine a magic academy hiring one for full time work. But I'm willing to be convinced. Give me a believable story about how you came to be under the employ of the Acadamae and I'll consider it.
dot
Another thing I am considering is a Pact Wizard (conjurer). I think I like this better actually. I'm not sure how exactly it works though. What makes the most sense to me is this: 1. I chose an outsider improved familiar. 2. I then chose a patron of the same type as that familiar. 3. If I pick Sacred Summons I can then use it to summon things of the same type as my familiar. For example picking an Earth Mertphit as familiar (and some elder earth elemental as patron) would let me summon earth elementals as a standard action while chosing a harbringer archon as my familiar (and some archon as my patron) would let me summon lantern archons as a standard action.
Another relevant question for this character would be, can I use the alternate options for summons (those listed in yellow tables on pfsrd) or will there be restrictions on that? It'll make it easier to find matching options for sacred summons for one.
Seeing as you answered questions after this one, did you miss my question?
That's exactly what I was thinking!
The two Magic Missiles emanating from the snake's mouth at the hilt is the exact image I saw as well.
Another question.
What about adding properties to the specific weapon?
I'll probably add Agile to the rapier, to get a little bit of melee damage if I need it.
It'll add 6,000 gp to the price of it, or 3,000 since I plan on making it my bonded object.
Edit: with the Arcane Arnor Training/Mastery Feats, could you be persuaded to make it an always-on thing? I lose complete access to Abjuration with Thassilonian Specialist, but no way to offset the loss of Mage Armor and Shield. Making them not require an action would help there.
I have two ideas of how it happened:
One, is that she was actually once a professor, who, in a poorly conceived idea, attempted to store her soul into that of a Soul Dolls form, in an attempt at immortality. The end result is that her memory is lost, and she has to rebuild her studies back up, eventually returning to her previous stature.
Alternatively, her husband (Who got hung when he did this) wanted to keep her alive eternally after she died, so he put a shattered remain of her soul into a souldoll, and attempted to train her back to full strength- Which she never did, being once the cream of the crop in terms of construct creation.
Alternatively, the result of a murder being granted access to the school curriculum, due to a insane student going in and murdering a young student, using her soul to create a dozen soul dolls- The issue being that she was the daughter of a very powerful man, maybe an earl, maybe a wealthy donor- They didn't want to risk it, so they tried to put as much of her soul back together in one souldoll as they could, resulting in a less than perfect woman being re-enrolled back into school, half her memory gone, left to try to rebuild herself. And she succeeded, becoming one of the best in her class.
If we are allowed to craft stuff in-game, will we be using the unchained variant crafting rules?
May I request the Force Commander archetype, in case none of the above fit?
dot. Ive never played a wizard, this seems like a fantastic reason to do so...
.
Storyteller Shadows' submission.
Mythaniel is a forlorn elf SpellSage Archtype on the cutting edge of Wizardry as his specialty is in flexible spellcasting options.
Let me know what you think of the build DM.
Ohhh shiny!
I think I will try and create a nice submission for this, it seems really intriguing...
My first thought was a wizard specialized in Binding outsiders and contracts with those, but oyzar seems to be on a similar track ...
My second idea would be and try to make an faux alchemist, the potion teacher. A bit of brew potion here and there, then a big nasty pile of poison, biology and fleshcraft research lurking *just* enough below the surface that people don't raise their eyebrow too high.
A question on this, given that (Mundane) crafting is sorta slow, how do you feel about
1) The unchained crafting stuff? (signature skills and that)
2) (Minor) Creation spells to create simple poisons?
3) Similarly as 2, using this subschool to create nasty icky stuff?
Otherwise, there is always Illusion(Shadow) which is a really nice area of expertise : )
Oyzar, alternate summoning is fine. Some of the levels are barely worth it if you don't have alts.
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bigrig107, No, the feats should stay as they are. You can't cast abjuration, but you do get a lot of extra spells. Also, there should be one or two other wizards who you could persuade to cast shield and mage armor for you. And there are wands you could UMD as well.
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Vagabond?, Ok you convinced me. I like the first story. Wizards are always screwing up immortality experiments. So for this custom creature:
Tiny Construct
DR 2/magic; Immune construct traits
Senses darkvision 60 ft., low-light vision;
Vulnerable to Mind-Affecting effects, -6 str, +2 Int, slow speed, Soul Focus (As with Soulbound Doll ability).
Keep the spell like abilities as well.
Spell-Like Abilities (CL 3rd, concentration +2)
3/day—light, mage hand, open/close, prestidigitation
1/day—levitate, one additional ability dependent on alignment
Construct traits and built in immortality are pretty sweet, so no extra RP. I also reserve the right to give you more vulnerabilities if you transfer your soul focus to a new doll. For example, if you put it in a corn husk doll, it might be vulnerable to fire. What material is this one made of?
I won't allow the force commander archetype. Paizo archetypes only.
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Mythaniel, Looks pretty good. I'll go through them next week in more detail, but the build seems solid at first glance.
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Lessah,
1. I haven't used the unchained crafting before, but it seems a lot better than the old system. I approve. I always thought mundane items should be easier to make.
2. I like the idea of using poison, and they are soooo expensive. I will say you can use minor creation to make your cubic foot of poison, which is effectively unlimited. But it has a shelf life of hours per the spell, and you must use a dose of actual poison as the material component.
3. That subschool is also fine. Good luck Snape.
@Lessah: Is there a way to do binding before level 9? 2 levels can be a long time in pbp to wait to get access to your character's primary focus. The archetype doesn't actually affect binding in any way outside of the familiar. I plan to focus quite a bit on summoning, though I'll probably pick up binding stuff as it's thematically appropriate, but if there was another character focused down that path then I could avoid it. Of course it's not like melee will be cluttered with a party of all casters, so we might want to bind several outsiders to us
@Contentious GM: Would you let me "pact" with a merphit/summon elementals through sacred summons? By strict interpretation of the feat you need a non-neutral aura to be able to use it. By raw it seems like binding with an imp (devils) or quasit (demon) are the best options. They would require the least adaptation. For devils there are no options for 3rd or 4th level though. If I were to chose that, would you a) Let me summon Cebrei as a devil or b) Find another reasonable devil to add to the 3rd or 4th level list? Pacting with a devil might make it easier to work with the party than binding with a demon.
@oyzar - there are some ways to bend the system and get it earlier (mainly stealing from the summoner). One can also take Skill Focus: Linguistics and trick outsiders (and others, but lawful outsiders work best^^) into signing contracts :P
But I think I will go with the potion/poison idea given the affirmative responses : )
Edit: Oooh and may we include the delectable Unchained poison tracks? They are deliciously nasty indeed - and can be quite effective at removing 'obstacles' trough a more subtle way.
That's actually fine, Contentious, as I have discovered something even better for this specific game.
The Instructor archetype.
Gives me a 5th level apprentice of the same school I'm specialized in, and specifically states that he can't ever take crafting feats.
My character will probably look down slightly upon his apprentice, as he cannot "truly" master Evocation (read: isn't a Thassilonian apprentice), but has still taken him on as an apprentice.
I'm interested in this campaign idea.
I have two questions:
1. Is Leadership an allowed feat?
2. Would a Half-Orc/Half-Construct be allowed?
Dot!
@oyzar - there are some ways to bend the system and get it earlier (mainly stealing from the summoner). One can also take Skill Focus: Linguistics and trick outsiders (and others, but lawful outsiders work best^^) into signing contracts :P
But I think I will go with the potion/poison idea given the affirmative responses : )
Edit: Oooh and may we include the delectable Unchained poison tracks? They are deliciously nasty indeed - and can be quite effective at removing 'obstacles' trough a more subtle way.
Are you referring to Samsaran's Mystic Past Life? I'm not sure that even works with spells already on your list, but if it does it is incredibly powerful. I could use it to pick up Summon Monster V as a 4th level spell and Summon Monster VIII as a 6th level spell. @Contentious GM: Does that work and is it allowed? It might be too cool to pass up and it would solve the problem of not having enough summons of the appropriate levels, however I could certainly see it being too unbalancing as well.
Oyzar, elementals are cool, so yes, you can pact with them.
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Avdroid, Leadership is allowed. If you take it you have a responsibility to your followers. Will they still follow you down the path you are headed? This campaign is going to be fairly open ended. I'm not going to plop in front of some monsters and say fight. I might put you at the edge of town with vague goals and see what unfolds. So, yeah, having followers could be good. But if you expect them to just be heal bots, you might be disappointed.
As far as orc/constructs go, it depends. If you are just trying to make a high strength fighter immune to magics of the party, then no. I probably opened a bag of worms letting Vagabond have a custom, so I'll do the same thing with you. Tell me more about this abomination. Is the top half and orc and the bottom half a construct? Maybe your hit points are split in half, and when either pool is depleted you either die for the top half, or have broken legs for the bottom half. I might go for something like that. Convince me that this isn't just a sneaky way to get a fighter, and I'll consider it.
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I'm going to a friends for the next two days. I'll probably be able to post tomorrow evening, so fear not. I will answer more of you ridiculous questions :)
Also, happy new year!
I'll have to look into unchained poison. Not familiar with it yet.
@Contentious GM
The concept stems from more of story reason. The Half-Orc was severely injured during his youth. A wizard saved his life by rebuilding him into a half-construct. The Half-Orc then became the wizard's apprentice.
So many construct. I can't say I'm a fan of having too many such characters. Being a construct makes it harder to relate to a character. That said I'm not the GM, so feel free to ignore my wishes.
@Contentious GM: Sorry for hiding my earlier question in the middle of text. What do you think of using Samsaran's Mystic Past Life to get earlier access to spells from the summoner spell list? I would honestly prefer to see it banned, but it's also a very tempting option :S.
This seems really, really interesting.
I'm thinking of creating an evoker.
This brings up an interesting question.
Can two wizards with the same schools be picked, or are all evokers in direct competition with each other?
Not sure if you want, or even care, about multiple schools, as I'm pretty sure the actual concepts won't be the same.
He said he would pick 6 people, pretty hard to not get multiple people of the same school.
That's what I was thinking, but aren't there eight schools of magic, plus universalist? (Evocation, Transmutation, Abjuration, Neceomancy, Conjuration, Enchantment, Illusion, Divination, and Universalist.)
Plenty of options for multiples, but I wasn't sure.
8 normal schools plus some elemental ones. And non-school focuses (like potions!) that will help differentiate us : )
I am planning to submit a fetchling Shadowcaster Wizard that makes good use of shadow conjuration and shadow enchantment.
I like the idea that his shadow is his familiar.
Questions:
1) Would you let someone pick an awakened animal for a cohort?
2) Would you let someone to cast (or rather, pay someone else to :P) Awaken on a vermin?
I'm thinking a spider sidekick would be sorta cool. And they have some really nice poison one could refine ... (The giant black widow is always a nasty classic. The dream spider has a less lethal poison but ah so much potential for shenanigans.)
Also, they are perfect to torment students that aren't paying attention (or being humble enough or being too dumb or being too smart or ...)!
Sidetrack: @Other applicants - If this is allowed, I am likely to play up the 'has a creepy spider' aspect of the character a bit. So if you have arachnophobia or something, please let me know and I'll cut it back!
3) The Serpent Belt has been highly debated on these forums but the functionality remains obscure. What are your thoughts on it (aka how do you interpret and rule "This belt’s wearer gains a +4 bonus to all poisons")?
I am actually super interested in rolling up someone that could eventually become a Diabloist with this. Someone teaching Conjuration and the Outsiders and eventually moving to the Diabloist PrC. Would that be okay?
If not, I'll have to think for a minute on what to make, but dotting this for interest.
He said no PrCs. I guess we'll be school-mates.
The no prestige classes thing is kinda weird, honestly. They're just kinda big archetypes you have to qualify for. You're just a more specialized wizard.
Don't know if I'll make anything for this yet.