Ruins of Azlant (Inactive)

Game Master Nathan Goodrich

I have a concept (no stats rolled or anything). Will this fit and/or race approval?

Concept
Invandi Abalast, descendent of two long lines of sylph blood, is a Stormsoul (Lighting Sylph) and child of Qadira.
His mother, a follower of Nethys primed his mind and fed him stories of fantasy and interest, and her personal quest was to understand the secrets and history of the Azlanti. His father helped to keep him grounded, having him perform civic duty and learning the rules of becoming master of his house.

In his young adulthood, he was of course conscripted the Qadiran army, where he served his two years finding adventure behind a shield and spear. It sparked a little rebellion, with him not wanting to bear the responsibility of managing the homestead and seek excitement. Then he heard of the Bountiful Venture Company. What better way to find adventure than to send back word of his findings to his mother who would no doubt swoon at whatever findings he could elaborate.

Writing a note of his plan to adventure and return with history uncovered and made, he left home to find excitement in a new land.

Personality: Excitement in expanding details into fantasy history, eager, teamwork, protective.
Quirks: Compulsively writing/drawing, there's generally a place to store chalk in the back of his shield which he uses as a quick-note for rambling ideas until he gets a chance review them, organize them and write them in an actual journal.

Race: Stormsoul Sylph
Class: Shield Champion Brawler. (I might take a single level of another class if it seems to fit well).

Character Sheet

Image

I have these for now. I'll create an actual PbP profile of stats from my character sheet once I have equipment/approval/finishing touches done.

Athan Cree: Human(Aquatic Heritage) Deep Shaman

As I was painting the broad strokes of Athan's backstory I stopped and read Zay's backstory and thought Athan's past is sort of a dark, unhappy reflection of Zay's. He wants to fit in but at the same time, he's learned the hard way that most people can't be trusted.

Here is a quick description of Athan's family background I shared with Zay earlier while discussing our similarities and differences.

Father(ish): Deep One who co-mingled with several female cultists who worshiped it as an avatar of Dagon. Mother: Human female who drank the fish-cult kool-aid. Father left/was driven off when the mother and her fellows were burned alive. Foster parent: old Besmaran cleric who absolutely only saved the child from the torch because he thought the Goddess of Sea Beasts would look favorably on the child/good luck charm.

I'll post a fleshed-out narrative version on Athan's profile once I get it sorted out.

Getting walloped at work. Hope to be dug out tomorrow.

Looking good in my humble opinion re both new characters!

I AM extremely amused our bard is still going to be by far the strongest character in this party. :DDD

No worries Taty!

Both sound fine to me as well; I'll be able to dig in a bit more after the weekend/PaizoCon.

OK, was able to read up and they sound like fun. I think Aurelian will be able to play off them well.

As I've noted before, Aurelian's played as very hedonistic. If anything makes you uncomfortable *PLEASE* let me know and I can dial him back.

And Aurelian's leveled up now. Not the most exciting level.
+ hp, +1 Dex, +1 BAB and Reflex.

+1 bonus feat: Surge of Success (When you confirm a critical hit or roll a natural 20 on a saving throw, you gain a +2 circumstance bonus on a single attack roll, saving throw, skill check, or ability check of your choice before the end of your next turn. You must choose to use this bonus before you make the attack roll, saving throw, skill check, or ability check.)

He needs starting funds/equipment and I need to work on his backstory but Athan's basic stat block is ready on his profile now.

OK. Getting back from a very lazy weekend.

As far as party balance goes, I don't think the group needs an explicit front-liner and dedicated healer, although those two things both fit the current group well. A primary arcane caster also wouldn't be horrible and we're through the levels that are most painful for them so that's an option.

Sylph wasn't on the original list of approved races. I'm not sure how much I want to push on that though.

I noticed that both Sylph and Waves Spirit Shaman have access to the see through mists property and that's one that PFS taught me to be wary of at least. Were you guys planning to take that option? Sylph otherwise seems like a non-obvious choice for a Shield Brawler. It's not immediately obvious how a Deep Shaman and a Brawler would use a trick like that, but I should ask.

If you guys haven't yet, but should probably take a look at the campaign summary before you settle in on your characters. You at least have the option of being colonists that were recently rescued from the horrid clutches of the Faceless Stalkers and their yet-unseen master. If that strikes your fancy for some reason, the easiest explanation is that you were among the dominated colonists the party rescued earlier and have now recovered.

You can find our most recent campaign summary here. Nothing has changed very much since that writing. The party went back to the temple & had a rough go of things when they first re-entered.

I'll figure out what we'll do for your starting equipment & such soon. Need to do some bookwork.

There was definitely no coordination on our part regarding seeing through mists. I don't actually have access to it. Waves spirit grants it but the Deep Shaman Archetype trades it out.

I would like to be one of the colonists rescued from the Faceless Stalkers. Athan has been constantly used by others throughout his life and has become mistrustful of others. He also has a low opinion of himself and while he's searching for a way to make himself useful and fit in he's not sure what he could contribute. I think the group of heroes that rescued him are people he would not only be more likely to trust but in them he would see an opportunity to use his "freakish abilities" to help the colony and earn his place.

I had to lookup what you were referring to about mists, and for the Sylph I'm assuming you meant the Feat "Cloud Gazer"?

I don't have any intention of taking a "see through fog/magical-fog" as a class or racial feature. I will point out that Invandi (currently) has the ability to take a gust of wind once per day which could be used to clear a fog from his immediate vicinity (maybe).

As a utility player, I have played with the Goz Mask and the Habit of the Winter Explorer before... and if given the opportunity may lean towards those kinds of purchases unless you want to give a warning against them now? (I'm not opposed to saying no, or not making them available, I just want you to know that I tend to toward them naturally as a player.)

The sylph is actually a bad choice (imo) for the Shield Brawler, except for its bonus to dexterity and the focus on throwing his shield around. I took it for the extra 5ft of speed, thought that the ability to "know the weather unless its being magically manipulated" would be interesting and useful for a campaign of explorers/survivalists, and the increase in charisma for just interacting positively (no focus on social skills though).

I don't intend to do any kind of air magic (other than the gust of wind thing) or vision improvement through the race, though they may be desired through magic equipment means.

I did read through the campaign player's guide before generating Invandi. Introducing him as captured by the faceless stalkers and watching them attack the party could be a good way to mend his "excitement" into a guilty feeling of recklessness that put others in danger. First wave or captured additional wave I don't think matters too much, given I know little of the previous parts of the game captured first wave explorer stands out to me.

Invandi is not much of a power build (again, imo). He's more focused on being able to deal a little damage and more towards CMB-ing enemies into advantageous positions for spellcasters and the swashbuckler. (AKa, using a tossed shield to Reposition or Trip two foes).

I'm rambling at this point. :)
I await your decision regarding the sylph and your bookwork summary.

Thanks again!

Thanks for the replies. Work has been busy lately and I haven't been able to get to the work I mentioned above. I'm trying to make room for it.

Thank you for the patience, everyone.

Invadi: sylph is fine. I don't think there's any special reason to think that a Goz Mask or Habit of the Winter Explorer would be good fits for this campaign.

Someone mentioned above that the campaign has been drier than their impression had led them to believe. Put an asterisk next to that thought. You guys will be plenty wet as things go on.

Treasure: this took me a bit longer to sort out than I expected, as the notes we left behind are somewhat scattered and a bit incomplete. I think I'm feeling confident of what we need to do going forward though.

Going back to the treasure obtained by the party again is pointless at this stage, so we won't do that.

The existing characters started level 7 with (I believe) more gear value than level 8 PCs normally get. This isn't a big surprise since the AP specifically says that the party is overgeared a little in total value to make up for the fact that some of the (expensive) gear items are 'getting wet' centric. Just as a quick example, Aurelian has 7200 gold value sunk into his Cloak of the Manta Ray which doesn't have a function out of the water. The remainder of their equipment is probably best described as eclectic due to the way most of it was obtained.

So, what I'll go with is that the new PCs start with Wealth by Level gear at level 7. Additionally, they will need to find some sort of 'getting wet' solution that will work for them. The value of the 'getting wet' solution should bring you to somewhere around Wealth by Level 8. If you need to overspend for that somewhat, it's probably fine but let me know.

So for numbers:
Wealth by Level 7 - 23,500g
Additional 'Getting Wet' Gear - 9500g

Edit: I noticed after I decided this that Athan Cree will be able to breathe underwater and has a non-trivial swim speed. That doesn't mean that a 'getting wet' solution isn't useful--maybe something to swim faster or to deal very strongly with darkness might be a creative use of the funds. If you aren't coming up with anything though, try to find something off the beaten path to spend the money on. The existing characters have some fairly weird items.

Edit: if there is any problem with making purchases after the instructions above, let me know. I'm not intending to make this painful.

*waits for Aurelian to make comments on ' 'Getting Wet' gear'*

>_____________>

<_____________<

I was trying to bite my tongue.

But yes, you do not need gear. Aurelian Fache will get you wet all by himself! :D

I admire your attempted restraint.

This is different than admiring Aurelian in restraints.

Writing a report for a grant we just finished and it is taking a bit longer than anticipated. I may be absent a couple of days as the deadline approaches.

Ah, grants.

I mentioned above that work was busy. It doesn't look like that is going to let up. I'll still be here, but I may need a bit more patience than otherwise.

Brief OOC spitballing here:

If the oozes are following us, we should definitely deal with them sooner rather than later-- hopefully they won't be able to make it to our camp during this night, but we should have a plan for if they do, since we have NPCs still dominated who would definitely slow down an attempt to flee.

We should communicate to our NPCs how futile direct combat will be against the oozes, since they'll just resist the damage, etc, and instead have a plan in place for 'the NPCs go one way, we lure the oozes another way.'

(For our new players, what we learned ICly about these oozes is here, and when there's a reasonable spot to do so in game, Zay will try and communicate it to Invandi and Athan, if another PC doesn't beat me to it.)

As for how we CAN kill them... that adaptive DR is super annoying. If I filled all my available level 1 slots with air walk, that could get us airborne and out of their attack range, and dropping rocks on them from above is a crude tactic... but it did work for Stone Age hunters!

They're big and easy to hit, so even dropping things from 160 feet, with the range penalties that would accrue, means it's actually still probably possible to hit them. And then they're taking falling object damage, doubled for being above 150+ feet... if we can hoist medium objects, we're probably managing 6d6 a hit. The DR will shield them from some of it, but not all.

It's not the sexiest way to handle that fight, but that DR 10 and the immunity to crits is like the lightning elementals all over again. Which is to say: it sucks hard for our party.

I'm certainly open to any other ideas anyone has, this is just what's occurring to me with my druid toolbox. And it's easier to hash this sort of planning out OOCly rather than IC.

(I also could just prep a lot of elemental damage spells and hope that I can cycle through types and do a lot of damage to soften them up before we go in for melee? Tactics may change if we have Athan and Invandi with us for that fight too...)

(And no worries, GM!)

Aurelian is pretty sure he can just stab them to death. But Aurelian is also very confident in his own abilities.

I think cycling through damage types makes the most sense, though just dropping things on them certainly has some appeal.

Aurelian's confidence is part of his charm, to be sure.

I could throw an ant haul and an air walk on Aurelian, at least, if we get a full night's rest. Though it might be hard to convince him of that plan. :P

Heya all,

Just checking in. I had wanted to get a jump on purchasing and finishing Invandi this week and weekend, but I had family come in from out of town.

He will be done soon.. I just may not get a chance to sit down and focus on it for a couple days.

As far as the slimes go, you probably have more than enough time to rest before you have to worry about them. The slimes are very slow and you re-encountered them near-ish to the Faceless Temple. If we assume that they are able to follow you all the way back to the base camp, they'll take something like three times as long as you did to arrive, starting from the re-encounter point.

So even the worst case scenario gives you rest & spell prep time.

Huzzah!

Oh man, what a week. Between family visiting and mandatory ITIL 4 training...

I finally have a moment to breathe. Purchasing gear tonight, should have Invandi finished before end of tomorrow (Pacific time).

Apologies for the delay. I can see the introduction post.

Fun times, trainings!

Indeed they are...
This one wasn't too bad, just dry.

I'm not a liar! Character purchasing done and formatted into PbP.
You'll find his information in his profile, along with a standard character sheet link, google sheet for his gear, and his image inside the stat-bar.

I moved the previously posted sheet/image to Google Drive so I didn't have his stuff spread across multiple services... so the previous links won't work anymore.

DM: Can I get you to review my purchases and finalized character, and send an "OK" before I jump into gameplay?

Invandi, your character looks fine. Go ahead and start posting. There is one issue I'm still looking into but it shouldn't hold up the Gameplay thread.

I'll be on vacation, through Saturday (will resume posting Sunday/Monday). I don't anticipate posting at all.

Have a good one!

Have a good vacation Aurelian!

Whenever the players are done with introductions is fine.

Has anyone heard from Athan Cree? I don't think we've seen them here since early June.

Taty is asleep, so I've been bowing out of the conversation, but I'm here!

I'll poke Athan.

Have fun out and about Aurelian.

Hey, sorry that I disappeared there. Upwards of 80% of my co-workers are Hispanic and my boss decided to throw a temper tantrum and say that not speaking fluent English equated to being a bad employee so we had a mass exodus that has turned my life into a living hell. I'll finish sorting out my purchases and start posting once they're approved.

Yikes! Crazy pants!

That does sound crazy. Hang in there.

If you need more time to sort things out, that's fine.

I feel that Athan's PB in conjunction with your post is like... a perfect exhausted face for that statement.

Will post later today (friday), and check in with athan

Here's the post where we discussed the restoration scroll. It seems the intent was to use it heal Aurelian's Charisma drain. We also discuss picking up a wand of CLW, which it looks like Kassi was going to carry but never got added to her gear list. Is it OK if Taty takes that and burns a few charges in the morning? She's still down a decent amount of HP.

@GM Netherpongo, I also realized I'd held some skill points back at Taty's creation to add once I knew if she was selected what the group dynamic would be, and I never actually did that. So, she's actually not fully leveled up yet. Could I go ahead and add those skill points now?

And FYI, I did take trap spotter as her rogue talent, so hopefully that will streamline our trapfinding a bit!

Yes, no problem on spending the skill points.

So, restoration can't be cast by me, and Taty would have to UMD it, and UMDing scrolls can be tricky-- minimum DC 27 for the restoration scroll.

As it happens, Athan, as a shaman, CAN cast restoration from the scroll, but that would probably be preferable to scene if possible, given we haven't yet had an IC post from Athan. (Checking in with him as mentioned)

going to post now, sorry for the delay

We still need Athan back but I'm thinking we should start moving forward again, if only slowly. I don't want the campaign to go on overly long without movement.

The first obvious order of business is the slimes. If Athan doesn't show up by then, I can have them attack the base camp & Sarine will be able to join in to take his place for the one encounter.

Any objections to that plan?

No.

We need momentum. Let's just say Athan requires more time to come out of whatever happened to him and continue with who we have for now.

Sounds good to move on. FYI I'm getting shellacked at work and have jury duty tomorrow... so I may be slow going for the next few days.

I'm good to keep moving forward...

Sorry, busy weekend. Will post today. Athan is still underwater. I'll try to get a hard date from him as to when he thinks it will improve.

I do understand that without the momentum the game may be hard to resume. I certainly do like the game and hope we can continue, but it can be a struggle picking it up after so much intermission, new characters, one of the new characters having a hard time out the gate in engaging, etc.