For us to discuss details for our campaign.
Welcome companions from our previous Carrion Crown campaign. Before we embark on this new game, I wanted to get a general concensus among the existing group.
We created characters for our initial game under the below guidelines:
Character Creation
20 point buy, no stats higher than 18 or lower than 8 before racial bonuses
Max starting wealth for your class
Race: Any of 14 or less RP, plus the Deep One Hybrid from Bestiary V.
Class: Any Pathfinder class. Yes, that includes antipaladins, though I don’t recommend it since most of their powers are useless in the campaign. Summoners and rogues should be unchained; unchained barbarian and monk are at your discretion.
Traits: 2, one of which should be a campaign trait and you can take a drawback for an additional trait.
Background Skills are in effect
Alignment: I am not a fan of alignment, but it is pretty fundamental to the Pathfinder rules and removing it is difficult. So while alignment will largely function as is mechanically, flavor wise it is going to be de-emphasized. Alignment should be the last part of your character you think about, and it can be a footnote. If you have a character concept that would normally be verboten in pathfinder (necromancer, demon worshiper, devotee of the Great Old Ones) feel free to submit it and write your alignment as morally neutral. Note that you'll still probably need to hide that aspect of your character from the people of Ustalav (and possibly the other party members, at least at first.
I am not looking for any drastic differences from this, though did want to propose a couple options.
First, I would like to open up the idea of rolled stats instead of 20 point buy. I would entertain several options, including (but not limited to) 4d6, or 2d6+6. What are everyone's thoughts?
Second, given the heavy gothic overtones, I would like to discuss a flaw of some sort for each character. I would want these to be flavorful, and though they will have an in game impact at times, do not want them to be horribly debilitating. Any ideas?
First of all, thanks again for doing this!
About rolling stats, I'm alright, considering the Magus' MADness it might be a boost to me.
About the flaw, I took the Pride drawback, we may expand on that. I usually like to give my characters a couple of berserk buttons, or emotional vulnerabilities, that the GM can exploit.
Out of curiosity, how would you handle Mathias? GMPC it?
Hello again everyone! And thank you for doing this!
I'm open to rolling for our stats if that's the consensus, even though I don't typically have much faith in the dice Gods treating me kindly.
The first idea that jumps out at me for a flaw would be Ilystria's oracle curse: haunted. Maybe we could have that feature more heavily during roleplay? If that isn't quite what you're looking for, let me know and I'll dig deeper.
I think both of those are perfect to play on for gothics flaws.
I have not heard from Romulus yet, but we just came out of the weekend, so I will give it a bit.
I would restart the game, recruiting a few more players to round out the party. I will modify the couple encounters we've had to this point, so that we are not simply repeating the past scenes.
How about you both roll a set of stats using 2d6+6, and let's see what you get.
As for Mathias, I may tie him in later in some capacity.
Let's roll.
Can work with that, can definitely work with that!
Oh wow, that actually turned out well. Thank you dice Gods! Do we have to keep the order or can we arrange them as we see fit?
I'll be sorry to see Mathias go, though. That's quite a sacrifice. Thanks again for doing this.
Do we have to keep the order or can we arrange them as we see fit?
Oh dear Sarenrae, I don't want to be the first Magus with 11 Int and 17 Cha!
Not like Nasrin couldn't use the extra charisma. =P
I'm guessing (hoping, wishing and praying) that it's not the case since we have established characters, but I wanted to double check before I get my hopes up.
Not like Nasrin couldn't use the extra charisma. =P
Nasrin crosses her arms and pouts, looking away from Lily.
Hahaha, definitely place your stats as you choose!
In that case...
I think I rather like this arrangement. Ilystria's gonna start cracking some skulls with her itty bitty aspergillum.
Now I want to see Lily Power Attacking the undead. Me, I think I'll go with a more standard arrangement of
However, be sure that I will do weird allocations of ability score increases and hunt down tomes and manuals in order to make all the scores into nice even numbers.
I do, too! But first, I want a rematch with those centipedes. Gonna get my licks in next time.
You can each move 1 point from one ability score to another.
@Illystria, don't forget the Size Bonus for being Small to attack.
Ahh, thank you! I knew I was missing something.
I moved one point from INT to WIS. Now I have (mostly) nice even numbers. But I was tempted to move it over to STR instead so we could have a lil' bruiser on our hands.
Oh, lovely. After a fight with my inner powerplayer, I managed to avoid raising my INT further. I'm moving one point from STR to WIS, I'll update the sheet when I get back to the PC.
Nasrin is brought up to date and ready for a go. Any word from Romulus?
Also, if we're recruiting for new characters, I think we could use someone skillful and trap-findy (that's not a word, I know), another frontliner and/or a utility caster (I have a narrow spell list and Lily is a spontaneous). Mechanically, I think that a Skald would complement our party magnifically.
About the flaw, I thought that I could make her more of a religious zealot, more hostile even towards Grimburrow and eventually clerics of other religions. The kind that torches the evil temple with the clergy inside, considering them beyond salvation. That would strain a bit from NG alignment, but since she's not actually getting spells from Sarenrae it could be believable.
Still no word from Romulus.
I like the Pride flaw, and I can definitely see ways to tug on it appropriately. I am hesitant to encourage the religious zealot concept, as I have seen such a character quite literally tear a game apart, and would have concern about starting off the game encouraging such a direction.
Yeah, on second thought, I see how it could cause unneeded strife in the party. I'm open to suggestions.
I think you were already playing the Pride flaw really well in the first run. You could carry it a touch further into a general air of arrogance, or as you mentioned, be quick to challenge any perceived slight.
I have posted a recruitment to try and round out the party. Feel free to let me know if any submissions peak your interests.
Alright, thanks, I'll stick with being quick to anger and easily offended.
Small question about the rules: when you say that we can choose any favorite class bonus, do you mean that I could, for example, take the Gnome FCB at levels 1 and 2 and the Elf one for the rest of them?
Also, Lily, since we know each other's character, at least a bit, I was thinking that we may say that we met earlier. Perhaps you were with Lorrimor for a bit at the Arcanamirium?
Precisely! I have never liked how some FCB are awesomely useful and others are near useless. As for the gnome FCB for magus, gaining ghost touch is perfect for the campaign.
I could kiss you right now. The only other way I had to get ghost touch on my black blade would have been the utterly useless ghost blade arcanum, which has the nice side effect of making the weapon completely ineffective against undead.
Hahahaha, no kisses necessary. I have just always been urked by how arbitrarily I feel the FCB have been assigned.
So, what would Mathias's stats have been if I were playing him...
Oh, that would have been nice. Mathias has been updated, just in case the party is ever in trouble and needs a savior. :D
Still no word from Romulus. In checking all his avatars, he was posting regularly on 4 or 5 games through October 19th-20th, then disappeared until 2 posts on the 29th, and nothing since.
I seem to remember that he was working a tiring job, perhaps he's lacking time.
Also, I'm always impressed at how many people flock to AP recruitment threads. For my Harrowing game, I barely managed to scrap together four applicants. Luckily, they were good ones.
Hey KatGrey / Ilystria, I just sent you a PM regarding your alternate character.
You two have a lot of potential new allies over in the recruitment thread.
Got it, Wayward! Sent you one back.
Nasrin, in case you weren't made aware, I had been discussing with our dear GM here (who I would really like to start calling Matty as an homage) about dropping Lily in favor of a new character. She's a gravewalker witch and "Priestess of Urgathoa", so one of the big concerns was the possibility for conflict between her and Nasrin. I remembered laz asked you how Nasrin would react to having to share space with a necromancer, so if that outlook still stands, hopefully the two will be able to see past their differences. My character isn't particularly devout, anyway; her association with the Church is more of a means to an end for her.
But about the other applicants, we sure do have a lot of potential allies! I was pleasantly surprised to see our new group will have six characters instead of four. I've been keeping an eye on the thread, and there's a lot of good concepts people have put forward. There's one in particular that's piqued my interest, but it has more to do with the fact that it's a little-seen concept (by me, anyway) that I've wanted to play for a while than anything else. If you do ask our opinions on the selections, it wouldn't color my judgement.
Looking forward to seeing everyone's finalized submission, though.
Excellent, I have a secret love for necromancers (especially the Gravewalker witch) so I welcome Ishara with open arms. Nasrin should be alright as long as you don't act evil. After all, Qadira has relations with Geb, and she should have seen her share of necromancy students in the Arcanamirium.
Her association with Urgathoa could be a bit more problematic, on both parts, but if you say that she's not particularly religious I believe we can avoid strife.
There may be some small measure of doubt at the beginning, but as long as we all act trustworthy it will be fine. Also, fighting with a scythe is simply amazing.
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I would love to get your combined thoughts on our applicants thus far, but prefer to have it be off the boards. If you would both PM me an email address, I will send out a group email for our use of conversation.
Sound good?
I just love the imagery of a necromancer witch fighting with a scythe. With the witch's abysmal BAB, I'm sure it'll only just barely be feasible for the first couple of levels or so, but I fully intend to enjoy it while it lasts. Maybe I'll build a Gravewalker witch/slayer for the next gestalt recruitment I see.
Anywho, if you still want to say our characters know (of) each other, Ishara would have joined the Professor on a few lectures in things like morality or necromancy, if Nasrin is the type who would have attended those. Probably not the latter.
You could dip a couple melee levels, or perhaps find the appropriate prestige class to keep yourself progressing in spellcasting while getting a better melee boost. Just some thoughts. Now, to the task of building our company. Nasrin, care to sound off on the email?
I'm leery about multiclassing right now; I only started playing Pathfinder a few months ago, so my confidence in building an effective single class character is shaky at best. But I appreciate the tips! For now, when Ishara starts lagging behind in melee, I'll either stick with spells & hexes or possess an undead creature if the situation allows and use it in melee instead. Now if only skeletons had Martial Weapon Proficiency.
Dipping any class that gives Martial Weapon Proficiency (Lore Warden Fighter would be mechanically the safest choice) would allow you to take the Eldritch Knight prestige class, one of the few Pathfinder PrC that is actully useful. You would, however, lose out on hexes, familiar advancement and two casting levels.
For knowing each other, it was a thought since we knew Ilystria, I'm alright with meeting Ishara for the first time and being flabbergasted by her necromantic talents.
I'm emailing now, sadly my time zone means that most activity happens while I sleep.
No worries about posting times. I am in the United States, but because of my work post at all hours, like right now (at 3:20 am my time).
That actually doesn't sound like too much of a sacrifice to me. I don't think most of the hexes are going to be very effective in this game, since a lot of the good ones require a will save or a fortitude save (or a will save, then a fortitude save). And familiar advancement isn't an issue since a Gravewalker replaces their familiar for a spell poppet. Looks like I have something to think on...
Oh, right, then you'd lose some range on your aura. If going melee, however, it could still be a fair trade.
Hi! Thanks for the invite, Wanderer :)
Daviana walks into the discussion with her head held high. Her faithful friend, confidant and bodyguard, Nicodemus, leading the way. "Greatings Everyone."
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Hi all. Thanks for the invite. Super exited about this game.
Checking in! Excited for the dark twists and turns!
And thanks for the selection!
Welcome everyone! I'm Nasrin, your Sarenrae-worshipping, dervish-dancing Magus, excited to be with you in this game! Let's all have fun!
Welcome everyone! It's nice to have such excellent additions rounding out the party.
Welcome one and all! It's only been a couple hours, and all save Dragomir have already tagged in. I have a few topics to discuss before we get started, and will be posting these as well as PMing each of you throughout the next 48 hours. I am hoping to kick off the game itself on Monday.
#1: battle maps vs theatre of the mind?
#2: standard equipment/wealth vs automatic bonus progression?
Myself, I like battle maps (and I can help with Google Draw, also this site can help upscale images).
I also really like ABP, since you can focus on getting the cool items instead of those you need, I would just have to remove the natural enhancement bonus from my Bound Blade.
Checking in!! Excited to be picked. Thanks Wayward Wanderer :)
To answer your questions
#1 I generally prefer a battle map for Pbp, more for spell casters who need to work out where to position their spells but I can work with theatre of the mind if that's the way you decide to go.
#2 I suppose I have a slight preference for standard equipment/Wealth but only because I'm unfamiliar with automatic bonus progression.
For #1, My preference is situational. I like maps in complex or exact distance/positioning critical situations. Theater of the Mind in simple/quick ones or when perfect range/positioning not an issue.
For #2, I don't have any experience with ABP, I'm willing to learn it, but might need some adjustment period to get used to it.
#1 Situational too. Probably several combats can be sped up with TotM but some should require positioning for strategy reasons
#2 I love the balance ABP brings, besides letting us focus on some cool / different magic items (even if with half wealth). With that said, its extra work for the GM to adapt the AP loot
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I bring another question: I think we have more than one trapfinder. Couldn't we do little adjusts now we're aware of the entire party? :) for example, I could remove the crypt breaker archetype (volunteering myself but will proceed however the GM/party prefers)