Baalrak is a different iteration of a name that I stole from another player's half-orc (Baalmora, a female fire kineticist). It sounds very... orcish.
I rarely give my PCs surnames unless they're connected with another PC or a campaign trait or something that gives him a surname. Like the Hell's Rebels campaign trait that makes you a noble and gives you a surname.
And yes - Pride is very much Baalrak's sin. He even has a drawback!
Going with the idea of being jealous of other people who aren't scared like he is, Envy could be a logical sin for Grim to have.
Envy would definitely work as well, probably better than Lust. Depends on if we're trying to overlap or not, don't want to steal Ivy & Ash's schtick ;)
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Yup. That's how I knew.
The short version of what I know about the AP hinges on trying to gopher out what a Thassilonian Specialist actually is for one of my players. He looked at it and saw 'better than a sorcerer in basically every way imaginable, as I also have as many spells as he does. Unless he goes Arcane. In which case he's losing so much flavor.' So I wanted to figure out what sort of hoops you'd have to jump through for it. Sadly, what I did find had some spoilers, but also didn't actually give me all that much.
Each sin is tied to a school of magic, and sort of the opposite of two others. For example, Greed gains Transmutation, but loses Enchantment and Illusion. Entirely. :)
For Sins, I'm pretty laid back. Ivy's a bit of a bon vivant, so I could go for lust with her, with ease. Everyone's got a little Sin... it's just sort of written into Ash that he wishes he were something that he's not. With help, he'll overcome that, of course. (And Ivy just wants to be a real girl. A real girl superhero.)
The cost of being a Thassilonian specialist is rather heavy. Even if you're intent on specializing in an arcane school, it's always nice to be able to fall back on the others for support. A wizard's greatest strength after all, is versatility. Still, the fluff of it is pretty danged cool. The only kind of wizard I'd be really hardpressed to play is a universalist.
As far as sins go, there's bound to be some overlap sooner or later. I'm really interested in seeing how it goes.
Universalist is universally bad. Just looking at the raw numbers: Which is better? A free slot and needing to pay an extra slot for -some- spells... or neither? If you choose the wrong specialization, and throw away necromancy and decide to start doing tons of undead... then you made your bed. But you're still coming out ahead most of the time if you specialize even in a -bad- school.
The only time I'd play a universalist is for the crafter. :)
I've heard that the playtest universalist was actually quite powerful, though I've never seen the specifics before. As is, it really does punish a player for trying to be a generalist. But I suppose that's fair - power has its price.
Yeah, the idea originally (1E/2E) was that you were completely locked out of schools, which made it a much more difficult choice. Picking Evocation (which was really why you went specialist back then, unless you were a gnome illusionist) was a painful choice because you gave up both enchantment and conjuration, both of which had some spectacular spells in them. Illusionists gave up Evocation, Abjuration and Necromancy, which really hurt as well :p
The other thing is that the universalist abilities are just meh. They should really get to poach other school's abilities, perhaps choosing which school to use when they prepare spells. That way they get some pretty neat abilities without the extra spell slot. Another possibility would've been to make them masters of meta-magic by allowing them a certain number of spell-levels free meta-magic upgrades per day (way more than the pitiful 1 spell-level-of-MM/day/2 levels, and way earlier).
They did try to help a bit by adding some items that gave universalists an edge over the specialists, but I'm not sure it makes a huge difference.
I have a larger problem with spontaneous casters than I do prepared. I have a hard time playing prepared casters because I have so many options at any given time... but a spontaneous caster feels like they rarely have real options to me. Sorcerer would easily be one of my favorite classes if it wasn't basically denied metamagic, a level behind on spells, and ultimately with roughly the same number of spells per day as a wizard (after all is said and done), though that may also be more of a gripe I have with charisma than that I have with sorcerer. If I invest in wizard properly, I have tons of int to be good at -everything-. If I invest in charisma, I'm mostly feeding a black hole. :(
I really, really like bloodlines. Sorcerer was what I saw as the best update from 3.x to pathfinder when my group made the switch,because there was so much flavor added. It was amazing... but I have a hard time justifying playing them, because I know aside from Arcana... someone does basically everything better. :(
Sorcerer is easily one of my favorite classes, but I do have difficulty creating them at times. The trick is to always pick spells that you absolutely know you'd be able to use every single day, lest the choice be wasted... And taking advantage of the fact that you can swap out spells that become obsolete or prove less useful than initially thought. The oracle has it even harder, since the cleric spell list is inferior in many aspects. Either way, I do think a good Charisma score has its uses, and I don't always like playing the guy who knows everything.
From a fluff perspective, the spontaneous casters win hands down for some reason. Bloodlines and Mysteries are probably some of my favorite mechanics in the game. Many of the options are cool, but still generally inferior to just being a straight wizard. But fair enough, since the arcanist pretty much makes them both obsolete. :P
It does seem that my favorite flavors all seem to come with the worst mechanics...
Sorcerer, Oracle, and Witch have some of the absolute best flavors... if I could find a DM I trusted to bind my familiar to a patron in a really good way as a witch and play it more like an NPC... that would be amazing. Remember, a witch's familiar does not serve the witch. It serves the patron. (I understand that witch is really good -but- I also understand that it's pretty darn gimmicky :p) Then Sorcerer has so many really, really neat bloodlines. Ditto Oracle with Mysteries.
I think the most painful part for me for Sorcerer and Oracle is that they offer the spells that thematically you should get as soon as you unlock those spells... but if you do, you're sort of messed because of your choice (without a loving DM).
Take an Arcane Sorcerer. You're going to get identify at third level. Two full levels after any sort of wizard that wants identify (probably).
Take Shadow: Darkvision at 5th. -FIFTH- level. That's two full levels after the wizard gets it and four full levels after you'd want access to darkvision if you're a shadow sorcerer. Heck, that's -two- levels after you get a 30 foot range on darkvision for free. I mean, I guess you could give it to another character, but it seems like a very poor spell.
It's not all bad, though. Take Verdant. At level three, you get entangle. A spell a wizard never gains access to -at all-. Which is amazing.
That all being said... when people play spontaneous casters in my campaigns, I give them a 0 in the columns when a wizard would get spells of that level, and move their bloodline spells to two levels earlier. In essence, a Shadow Sorcerer gains a 2nd level spell slot (assuming his charisma is 14 or higher) due to bonus spells, and learns Darkvision when he gains that level. He's still limited to learning new spells as a normal sorcerer, though. So he still can't learn any nonbloodline spells of 2nd level until 4th. But it helps to tie up the gap.
(I also don't force metamagic to take longer, which makes them the masters of on-the-fly magic... but with slower spell progression, I feel like it makes up for it).
Oh, and as an aside... Ash is almost assuredly going for Verdant Bloodline feat(s). :)
It's funny, I consider sorcerers to be the superior users of Metamagic. A wizard has to prepare Metamagic'd spells ahead of time, knowing exactly what he might want. A sorcerer gets to use metamagic on the fly for only the cost of a move action (and can use quickened without any cost at all), allowing your spells to do things they wouldn't have done when you need them to.
Spell choice is really important for sure, as is creativity (spectral hand + gaseous form = get friend out of grapple!). But with rings of spell knowledge and/or Human/Half-Elf as a race you can get access to pretty much all the spells you'll ever need.
Edit: I also just let people choose spells to replace the bloodline when they get it. So if you picked up mage armor right away, and then got it for free, you can just choose a new spell instead of wasting a retraining or delaying gaining the spell.
Sorcerers are also by FAR the superior wordcasters, because they can assemble wordspells on the fly.
Rings of Spell Knowledge are nice, plus you can use a wand of any spell on your spell list, so you can grab a wand for all of the situational spells that you don't really need on your spells known, but you want to be able to cast just in case. Plus, human favored class bonus is just plain awesome.
:P I also read Rings of Spell Knowledge differently than how we're running them in WotR. Specifically, the ring makes no mention of being able to overwrite what's stored on them. :)
Well, they also don't say you can't overwrite it. Usually that's the sort of thing that you get a "once done, this cannot be changed" warning in the item for.
But beyond that, Pages of Spell Knowledge provide the exact same benefit if the ring cannot be overwritten, don't take a slot, don't require a spellcraft check, cost 2/3's as much, and aren't capped at 4th level spells. The existence of the Pages implies that the rings are meant to be overwritten. :)
Okay, I was somehow unaware that Pages of Spell Knowledge existed. That's absolutely wonderful for sorcerers.
Would it be silly to carry around a spell book that's just a ton of Pages of Spell Knowledge bound together in one place?
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You can keep them all in a three-ring binder. :P
Your mother vanished from town well over a month ago. Nobody was concerned, at least not initially; she was known to frequently travel the Lost Coast Road, under the pretense of gathering herbs and offering her prayers to Desna at her various shrines along the road. She was never gone for more than a day. So when a week passed by with no sign of her, the guards took action. An investigation of her home showed no signs of a permanent departure. People started to fear for the worst.
Passing through town for the season, elven ranger Shalelu Andosana volunteered to track her down. She started down the woman's usual path, but the trail had already gone cold. On a hunch however, she went off the road to investigate the Nettlewood. Amid the dense brambles and thickets, she found no body, but shreds of bloodied clothing, and signs that goblins had been in the area. Knowing the fate that typically fell upon people taken prisoner by goblins, Shalelu regretfully reported to the mayor that your mother was very likely dead. A tragedy, but oddly enough, one the people of Sandpoint were able to accept.
Perhaps a bit eager to move on from the tragedy, the town officials arranged for her funeral. However, they were left with a bit of a conundrum: your mother sometimes spoke of having children, but no one in town knew who or where they might be. As it would turn out however, she had already arranged for her next of kin to be notified.
Suspicious! But works for me :)
Actually, on that note, I was mostly thinking of the pages not the ring. So that explains why I remembered the item working so differently. :P
I think there was a concept back in 3.5 or something that involved collecting all of the pages of spell knowledge and binding them into an artifact... but I can't remember it. It'd be a really, really cool character concept for the right kind of sorcerer.
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That would be a pretty nifty artifact, a book of perfect knowledge :)
I like it as well!
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Your temper proved to be a bit too much for the other children of Turandarok Academy. Headmaster Gandethus all but expelled you, recommending to your mother that you were better off being tutored, gods save the soul of whoever got the job. Fortunately, there was another scholar in town whose foul temper proved to be a match for your own - Brodert Quink. Quink proved very difficult to convince, as he highly valued the time he put into his research. He eventually relented however, reluctantly agreeing to make the time to take charge of your education. Instead of ending in disaster as some feared, the relationship proved to be more than ideal. Perhaps because you were the only person in town who showed him the respect he believed his knowledge entitled him to, he was all too happy to indulge your curious nature. He even shared with you some of the most important of his theories regarding ancient Thassilon.
Five years ago however, when your arcane powers seemed to chaotically reach their peak, Quink realized that he was no longer qualified to assist you; though he was a brilliant theorist, he had no practical knowledge of magic. Instead, he pulled a few strings with some old acquaintances and pointed you to Magnimar for your continued education. It was by chance alone that your departure spared you from the horrors that would plague Sandpoint in the months that followed.
You returned to find that the town was a much bleaker place than the one you left.
Love it. Sounds absolutely fantastic.
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And then there was one...
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to study the Sandpoint appendix until my eyes bleed. Q_Q
Shalelu has a great love of nature (of course) and a hatred of goblins (of course). She worships Desna, and as such, frequently travels throughout the region. She visits Sandpoint seasonally, always reporting news of goblin activity to the town guard in exchange for a modest sum of gold, without ever explaining her motivation for doing so. As a close friend of Ameiko, she always stays at the Rusty Dragon during such visits, always free of charge. She is rarely forthright with her own past, and generally prefers to travel alone.
I'm pretty happy with that, and I'm going to say that there's a good chance she met Ivy and Ash out in Mierani while she was traveling. Contrary to what you probably expected, Ash is actually rather shy and closed in... Ivy is the one much more likely to have shown interest in the woman.
I think this lines up well, and might be the catalyst for the two deciding to travel when they did; while she travels alone, inspiring travel in others seems up Desna's alley, if not Shalelu's. As a direct result, having heard tales of distant lands (as far as a hundred miles away from the forest!) Ivy would very likely have wanted to go. Chances are, if Ivy knew about the Swallowtail Festival that would be an added reason to head specifically to sandpoint! Yay for adding ties!
How does that all line up for you?
She was last in Sandpoint about one month prior to the start of the campaign, so you likely met her before and/or after that time period, depending on when you started to travel.
Alrighty then. I'm gonna try to get better acquainted with everyone's statblocks and work on some introductory posts. I wanna try to start sometime this week, but no rush if you aren't finished quite yet.
There might be some changes to Grim's. I'm still working on figuring out if I want to start fighter and pick up IUS until I can retrain, thus allowing me to get Wolf Savage by 4th, or start Monk and wait until 8th-9th. His stats have shifted around some as well. I'll try to put together an updated stat block and character sheet tonight or tomorrow.
Personally I'm pretty down to start whenever. I don't think I have anything I might change, unless somebody finds some really cool, flavorful feat for me to take instead of Power Attack.
I am considering adding 2 to my Strength and subtracting 2 from my Charisma, for Str 18, Cha 14 overall.
We have something of a lack of damage.
I'm gonna do it.
I'm always a slut for 18s.
I think my character sheet is finalized. I may tweak my spell list, but I'm ready to start more or less.
So I have, I think, finished up my progression for Baalrak - feats, rage powers, what levels I'm taking where, and what spells I'm taking.
Skill points are gonna be a bit more mutable.
Take a look, if you care! I think I did a good job.
I had lots of spare time today, if you couldn't tell.
Looks good to me. He's very good at delivering one really powerful hit and crushing people with one blow. Plus he can stack rage bonuses like crazy.
I'm curious why he's taking Drill Sergeant levels from a story standpoint.
Somebody has to tell the wimpy ass guards how to do their jobs. ;P
I generally only prepare a couple levels in advance in the early levels and never have any endgame goals until way later in the character's lifecycle. It took until level 6 to have Ary mostly set up, and then she's still just mostly a set of priorities. :)
Soooo... I'm not terribly valuable for how well a build will work. I'll take a glance anyway, though.
Also, Ivy is hurt. Saying her damage is no good when she's almost as awesome as you ;~;
Hey, I'm actually eternally grateful to Ivy - there will actually be a target for my raging song all the time.
As for drill sergeant - it just makes him better at yelling at people and then them getting better. He's probably not a drill sergeant in name but the abilities match him certainly.
Looks like a pretty good build to me, although I find remove fear to be really really situational. And I think Grim should benefit from rage song as well, he's not Dex based for attack/damage, though he has high dex for combat reflexes.
Hahaha... ha... ha... this is going to be hilarious. I hadn't even factored in Rage Song for Ivy. I have no idea how I'm gonna play that til it comes up. :)
We're gonna have a whole lotta reach attacks :)
Ransuer, Elven Branched Spear, Glaive... yeah. Baalrak is going to be standing in front while everyone crowds around behind him with our pointy sticks.
I'll probably try to be frontish too. When I trip with the spear I'll be able to direct where they land, meaning I can dump them right in front of Baalrak and I ;)
When are we going to start?
I still need to see Grim's sheet, but I plan to post the big-fat introductory post when I get home tonight. And then I will be working on some smaller character-specific posts to situate you a bit, and then let you all loose in Sandpoint to do what you want for a while.
Gah ok, getting to it right now then. Sorry I've been dragging, been burning through most of my creative juices in the WotR game.
Ok, done. Just need to copy the fluff/answers into there as well. Stat block should be complete though.
The introduction is up, but don't post just yet. I'll have the smaller introductory posts up soon, just to insert you all into the setting. Once those are out of the way, you can feel free to tackle the festival however you like. It's up to you whether you were actually there for the opening speeches. ;P
Almost done with the posts! I just realized that I typed them all in different tenses, and now it's really bothering me, eheheh.
@Ash: You know, I completely forgot to ask. Ivy is always summoned by default, right?
I've found myself fighting that a lot. If I'm not focusing on it, I always slip into writing in past tense. Lots of times I finish a post and end up having to correct half of it 'cause I slipped mid-way through from present back to past :p
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Yup. It's a 'Am I awake? Time to wake up Ivy' thing. :)