So I figure Okrin is a great way to propel things towards endhome, naturally. He comes with built in motivation to travel there, and if he doesn't want to wait for a caravan to join, he would naturally be looking for companions since the road is dangerous.
I think we decided Cian and Morrigan are heading that way anyway, right? To invite estranged tribesmen to the coronation rites?
You guys don't have to hang your hats too heavily on the Mama Bobo plot seed, but now Karl and Mak at least have a reason to want to attach themselves to Okrin.
Dennin Blackfinger (see NPC Appendix) earned his name when a magical mishap stained his fingers black. Though he does not draw unnecessary attention to himself, he has earned a reputation as a skilled battlemage and wily commander. In battle, he is tricky and resourceful, often winning combats through maneuver alone with minimal
risk to his men. He specializes in deceptive tactics and ambushes that dishearten the enemy and destroy their morale.
Blackfinger is also cautious, and will not squander the lives of his men unnecessarily. This combination has proven successful, and he is as beloved by his men as he is famous for his tactics.
Blackfinger is aided by his spymaster and chief scout Ash the Clever and executive officer Dante the Baleful. Often these officers will command contingents of Blackfingers sent into battle, but separate units of Blackfingers will never take the field against one another. In such cases, both units will stand down and refund their employers’ gold.
Anyone is welcome to join Blackfinger’s mercenaries, as long as they are willing to work hard and follow orders. Those who aren’t cut out for combat are employed as support staff, while warriors and skilled war wizards rise through the ranks quickly if their skills merit it.
Hey Caramir aside from like you said the seekers of twilight being obvious, what about Blackfinger's Devils?
I like the idea - starting at level 1 Caramir is a ranger, in the old elven tradition, but he is looking to learn much more in the ways of arcane magic - tagging or cooperating with the Blackfinger's Devils seems to make perfect sense ;)
Would it be appropriate to say that Caramir had cooperated with the Blackfingers before on scouting missions - he could be there right now, debriefing :D
I think the Blackfingers would make sense as a point of contact for Caramir. I would say his main focus is probably the Academy in Endhome to take and/or perfect the Arcane Path he intends to take.
(Though I am also pondering giving him a 'darker' streak - being drawn to power :D)
However old he may be (at 124 he is definitely an adult), he has only recently arrived in the region (I guess we can say a couple of months? On elven standards he could be in the region for the past two years, or five, or...), and a common ground with the Blackfingers (due to his martial bent) would most likely be attainable. Since he can navigate the wilds, the role of scout, relay or courier would most likely be the best for him?
No word from Cian or Morrigan since thursday, I'll PM them to find out if they are still on board, if not I'll advertise in recruitment for a divine character, but we can still proceed with no delay.
The intro adventure I planned for the road to Endhome is unique and challenges player creativity above what is on the character sheet. It could be done with a group of npc commoner classes probably. Party composition won't matter until after we reach Endhome and begin to tackle the Lost City module.
Human Magus 3 (Staff magus) | HP 21/21 AC 16 | T 12 | FF 14 | CMB +5 | CMD 17 | FORT +4 | REF +2 | WILL +3 | INIT + 1 | Perception +3 | Stealth +2 | Bluff +0 | Sense Motive +0 | Diplomacy +0 | Spellcraft +8
current spells:
Hey grimmy and Mak:
I want to give Karl a flaw. He won't use fire spells, or even alchemist fire. This is due to a training accident. It is also why he uses cold spells as a preference. Chillstrike is due to his using chill touch or frosbite spells a lot. I'll bring up as a roleplay point, although anyone who knows me, like Mak, knows I don't like fire much.
So are there enough ingredients in the pot now for you guys to act out the formation of the party?
With my other games I jumped straight into gameplay with the party already formed mostly (accept for valley of the shrines, I gave them some ingredients and let them RP their formation as a group).
Oh that reminds me, I wanted to show you and Okrin something.
It's a 3rd party option that let's multi-class characters start at level 1 with their MC concept already realized.
French Wolf aka Jerrid from Wizard's Amulet introduced me to it, he is a freelance writer from Raging Swan press I think so I trust him that it's balanced.
If anything it probably nerfs you vs playing a single-classed 1st level PC, but seriously, I can't stress this enough, the 1st level adventure I have planned does not care what is on your character sheet.
Hmmmm, that sounds very interesting actually - it usually kinda puts me off having to delay the multiclassing concept until I gain the level to do it.
For example, my idea with Caramir is going Ranger/Wizard, but ever since my day one with multiclassing, the notion of 'poof, I gain a completely different class' was always an issue. Actually, in my early AD&D GMing days, multiclassing was usually an adventure (or a couple) in itself - the guy that wanted to become a wizard would travel to a school of magic, learn about becoming enrolled, go through tests, the works :D
So, where can we find that info?
By the way Okrin, would you mind me asking what is the plan with your character - you planning on multiclassing?
Yeah exactly, it's so jarring, poof I'm a wizard now too!
Of course there are plenty of ways to pull it off smoothly short of the elaborate side-quests and downtime spent in training that my AD&D groups did in the old days.
Seems the new-school is content to hand-waive it (my character was studying everyday while you were breaking/setting up camp etc.). That's not so bad, I get it. There are a few cases where it can feel weird, especially if a player is in the dissociated mechanics camp i.e. classes are just sets of stats and abilities with no intrinsic connection to any thematic or narrative values.
Honestly I loved doing things the way you described back in AD&D, I thought it was great :) See, our games didn't have a pre-determined plot, so rather than training and side-quests feeling like they derailed or distracted from the plot, they felt like they drove the plot. That was the story, that was the game. It was alive, we didn't know where it would take us.
That was my favorite, and I'm setting up this campaign to support that kind of play if people will buy into it, but I also don't want to shove it down anyone's throats.
Honestly, if I pushed that aspect harder I don't know if I would have a game 0_0
I know there's a crowd that likes that style, but they are in the OSR world, playing retro-clones. For some reason it's very very hard to find people who want to try that with a crunchier ruleset, which I really can't for the life of me figure out. Why is it so hard to divorce a ruleset from a style of play? I started a topic about this on myth-weavers and those guys seem to feel it comes down to indoctrination? Maybe that's a bit harsh.
Ok sorry that's a whole big tangent. I'm sure there's a better place for that conversation to happen.
Bottom line, there won't be any surprise hassles for anyone wanting to enter another class in the customary modern PF way (as long as it makes sense and flows with the narrative, but no special sidequests or downtime devoted to training) so if you are happy starting with a single class and adding the other upon leveling up that's fine. I'll just present this hybrid option, use it if it appeals to you, no pressure.
I took a look at the tables, and sorted out how Caramir would look with the Apprentice Levels of both Ranger and Wizard - I gotta admit it is an interesting compromise between the two classes, and works out quite well in my opinion.
I just worked it out with modifiers in Herolab but it is clearly not the best way - as soon as I have the definitive character sheet, I'll put it up.
Well I did some figuring earlier and 3Fighter 4Bard would put me into Duelist at lvl 7. That's where this all came from.
Dipping Ranger would almost fit Mak's story better, but he isn't a dual wep or range build, and rangers with high CHA are kind of "talk to the animals" types.
I still say everyone should play what they are excited about and invested in.
Oh, I am invested in Caramir alright - though looking at the scope of the game, I could be invested in many other characters. It just seems there are so many things to do :D
Thanks Caramir, looks like I created another one of those situations where there isn't much for others to post except whoever's involved in the scene. D'oh! I keep doing that.
I would say it is almost impossible to keep everyone involved in the action all of the time, so no worries there.
I'm also getting a feel for the post rates and whatnot.
I was thinking that contingent actions can go a long way in PbP since people are usually on different time zones, etc. I don't use it a lot, but I plan on starting to.
Well no what happened was, I started recruiting in June for an adventure I wanted to run in Aug, because I wanted to take my time and get the cream of the crop. But I found them fast and they were ready to go, so we've been doing like a soft start... with prologues and individual introductions and so forth.
But I'm ready now, I'm prepped. I want to roll this out.
Yeah, I read all of the Recruitment, Discussion, etc :D
I was referring particularly to combat situations, when a more 'to the point' posting is required (and I guess the same can be said for dungeon exploration) - leaving a contingent action for your character posted can go a long way in speeding up those sections, which are usually the slowest in PbP - mainly if you don't want to DMPC players.
I also read the soft start part, and I think that when the players are up for it, it is a great setup.
Oh contingent posting.. Is that like "if/then" statements? My worst nightmare.
I'm here to play games with people, not run their automated PC's for them and log it all so they can come back in three years to find out if they beat Orcus ;)
I'm just saying that for example - Person A (who is a great player) is in the US, and person B (who is also a great player) is in Europe, they will probably have peaks of posting or activity in the boards at quite different times.
So if the one most removed drops a post before going to bed, it may allow the group to play out 2 rounds of combat in a single day (as opposed to one round a day or something like that), which is not all bad for PbP unless people's availabilities are really in sinc (heck I played in a game where combats would take but a few hours :D).
I'm not saying you post a script of your character actions, and then don't show up for weeks, or that you post 5 combat round actions.
Just one round, or a couple simple actions if they make sense. Stuff like that.
Oh I thought you meant those procedural if/then style posts. I have seen some of those. Yeah right I'm going to go back two pages to find out what you're character will do if the owlbear eats the wizrds familiar (^__^)
