Way of the Wicked Reversed, Group Two

Game Master parizzio

A place to discuss your thoughts and offer me GM bribes.

Hey guys, checking in. Looking forward to getting started!

This group is much more diverse than the first. No pesky paladins watching your every action ;)

Karl glug glugs in anticipation.

Yay diversity!

Surprisingly there's no polar bear avatars. =(

No there aren't...but I mean....that avatar. Awesomesauce

Am I allowed to buy Full Plate? I can never remember if the guideline is 1/3 of WBL or 1/2.

I was literally just looking this up.

Table: Character Wealth by Level can also be used to budget gear for characters starting above 1st level, such as a new character created to replace a dead one. Characters should spend no more than half their total wealth on any single item. For a balanced approach, PCs that are built after 1st level should spend no more than 25% of their wealth on weapons, 25% on armor and protective devices, 25% on other magic items, 15% on disposable items like potions, scrolls, and wands, and 10% on ordinary gear and coins. Different character types might spend their wealth differently than these percentages suggest; for example, arcane casters might spend very little on weapons but a great deal more on other magic items and disposable items.

So I'm not allowed to until next level, it seems. Bummer.

Gives me more money left over for booze though!

No, you're fine. Pick it up. I had allowed other players to combine their 'magic effect' with weapons and armor. I think someone had a mithral shirt, another a +1 armor. Feel free to grab yourself some full plate.

Magic effect? I don't remember any special magical effect we got.

Also, the Holy Symbol Flask is the greatest thing.

No, what I was saying was that you can spend 25% on 'armor and protective items' and 25% on 'other magic items'.

People generally combine them or stick to the rule of thumb of not buying anything that costs more than 50% of your base income

Cool.

Have you given thought to the Campaign Traits for this one yet?

I nabbed Maestro of the Society assuming I could reskin it in some appropriate way.

As for a campaign trait I'm at a loss. Maybe something to reflect the difficulties of Nukilik's life among two-legs. Probably something that grants +1 will save.

So we've got the rogue skill set covered with Maven, and I've (somewhat painfully) got all the knowledges covered. I'm a full arcane caster, Nukilik has full divine, and between Cal and Karl we've got solid ranged and melee covered. Anybody see any holes we need to fill?

Campaign Traits usually give something a little more unique than simply +1 save, +1 skill and class skill, etc.

Stuff like "Is missing a leg, but uses a Peg Leg with no speed penalty" (Skull and Shackles) or "Gains the ability to disarm magical traps" (Mummy's Mask) is more the norm there.

Though some do stuff like that, but it's a little more involved (stuff like +1 Will saves and 2 Intimidate and a class skill, but -2 Diplomacy when dealing with "two legs").

Also, were we doing Background Skills? I noticed Kyriel has some.

Kn. Engineering and Profession (Soldier) would be neat for me if so.

Yeah. We get normal skills per level +1 and background skills.

Yeah, background skills was in the recruitment thread OP.

Ah, I overlooked that. Sweet!

I definitely have ranged combat pinned down and can wade into melee if absolutely necessary. I'll be rocking a nicely high AC at later levels. Also, my horse will be amazing but that is of limited use.

I was thinking that for my campaign trait something akin to Cunning Liar but for Handle Animal checks would be thematically appropriate.

Regarding Kyriel's role in the group, I see him turning into quite the dex-tank (eventually getting INT to AC with the Duelist PrC and dodge bonuses up the wazoo), laying down hurt with his rapier, either through tripping (INT to CMB at level 5) or good old fashioned stabbing (rapier+fencing grace+improved critical).

I'll be leveraging the wizard side through mostly divination, illusion, and transmutation buffs, and of course bringing the knowledge.

Oh, and I'm an excellent swimmer!

As for campaign traits, I was thinking something like Defensive Strategist for Kyriel. Maybe tacking on a 'fighting defensively' attack penalty reduction or an init bonus to bring it up to campaign-trait power levels?

I thought I was the only one that wore armor on his wizards. Does Kyriel have a way to get around her arcane spell failure?

I have no real thoughts as to what mine should be. My main traits are I'm a hard drinker, a professional soldier, and a devout Mitran.

Anything that ties into those would be cool. I wouldn't mind something akin to the Potion Glutton Feat but only for alcohol, or some cool use for Profession: Soldier.

Seasoned Veteran [combat]

Your varied experience on the battlefield has left you with smatterings of useful combat tricks.

Once per day, you can make a profession (soldier) check with a -5 penalty in place of a knowledge check to identify a creature and it's capabilities.

Alternatively:

As a standard action, you can make a profession (soldier) check in place of a knowledge check to identify a creature and it's capabilities.

I'll get some suggestions for your personalized traits sent to you soon. I'm going over each of your backstories and character sheets to figure it out. The ones I've given so far are definitely better than standard traits.

Seasoned Veteran [combat]

Your experience on the battlefield has left you with smatterings of useful combat tricks.

Once per day, you can make a profession (soldier) check with a -5 penalty in place of a knowledge check to identify a creature and it's capabilities.

Alternatively:

As a standard action, you can make a profession (soldier) check in place of a knowledge check to identify a creature and it's capabilities.

This kind of thing (without the 1/day restriction) is the kind of thing I always wanted Fighter to have, actually.

The no-action version is 1/day because it is a pretty powerful effect for a trait. That said, I could see removing the penalty on the 1/day version.

The standard action version is unlimited because it either requires the fighter to scout ahead and remain unseen guerilla style or eats into his actions in combat.

I think both have merit.

I thought I was the only one that wore armor on his wizards. Does Kyriel have a way to get around her arcane spell failure?

Haha yeah! I love the idea of an Elf embracing both racial traditions, nimble swordplay and magic.

Short of mithril chain, preparing buffs like Blur with no somatic components, and praying my d10 doesn't roll a 1, I haven't addressed the spell failure chance yet.

If I can spare the feat slot later on, I might pick up the Arcane Armor feat. There's always still spell for those must-haves, but I think I'd rather risk the 10% fail chance than burn a feat slot and the swift action each round, or suffering the metamagic slot increase. Lol. I guess we'll see!

Hey, I totally approve. I had a melee summoner I played through CoT that wore breastplate the whole way through despite my friend's mockery.

While I've got the creative juices flowing I cooked up another one.

Drink through the Pain

It's good for what ails you.

As a move action you can draw and consume a serving of alcohol to suppress the shaken, sickened, dazzled, or fatigued condition for 1 minute. Alternatively you can reduce a condition to the less severe version for 1 minute (frightened to shaken, nauseated to sickened, blind to dazzled, or exhausted to fatigued). This trait can be used once per day per point of constitution bonus (minimum 1).

Hmm, I think unlimited uses of the Profession Soldier to identify would gimp a great deal of the use of knowledge skills, at the ire of mages I'm sure :)

I like the idea, but instead of using it to identify a creature, pick one knowledge and apply it across the board.

Hm, that's a toughie. Local, Planes, or Dungeoneering?

Either of those would work well, considering a soldiers life in Talingarde. Lots of Celestials to learn about the planes from.

Cool. Picked Planes, and swapped out Local for Religion.

I love this sort of effect. I take Forbidden Knowledge (use Kn. History or Religion for Kn. Planes checks) as often as possible.

I think I'm done with the build BTW,if that's part of what we're waiting on. Traded out the Intimidate stuff for Outslug Style, since my build was getting a little...busy going into the future.

Can't wait until we hit 8th and I can start smashing spells. Not as good as Spell Sunder, but I have a feeling enemy Divine casters will be relatively common.

I'm still pondering a campaign trait.

Maybe something that lets you cast without hands?

I assume I already have something like that. Naatanuk have dexterous paws.

Naatanuks can be difficult to tell from normal bears. They are slightly larger when full grown but otherwise exactly look like a polar bear. The easiest way to recognize them is that the paws of the Naatanuk are slightly more prehensile. They use this dexterity to occasionally paint blue tribal markings upon their faces and snouts. These markings have led some Talireans to believe that the bugbears of the north ride polar bear mounts.

I was leaning towards something involving using an alternate inspire rage once per day. Or maybe buff inspire rage once per day.

Ah. I know nothing about the race. I don't even know what book that's from. Well, besides The Golden Compass but I don't think that's your source reference.

I HAVE to know what wind instrument Nukilik plays. I can't get the image of a flute-playing polar bear out of my head. I love it!

Don't worry about it. The internet doesn't know much either. I dug that blurb up from an Obsidian Portal blog/thing. I assume it's an excerpt from one of the books.

For the wind instrument I'm imagining a big horn. Alternatively something like this.

Did you and Snowe just kind of back-engineer the stats via PMs or something? I'm kinda curious as to what a sentient bear looks like stats-wise.

We are SUCH an eclectic group compared to team one. =)

"So a bear, a drunk, and a wizard walk into a bar..."

Yeah it was put together using the race building rules to at least resemble the default naatanuk stat block.

Can I use the Unerrated version of Arcane deed... because it seems a stupid errata.

Oh wow, lol. Kyriel and Marconius are quite similar. This should be fun.

Marconius, here comes the good and the bad.

The irrelevant: I feel that the errata for Arcane Deed was necessary because the arcana was horribly written.

The Good: I think the errata is stupid, because it destroys opportune parry and riposte, Kip-up...actually it'd be easier to name the deeds it doesn't ruin so I'll move on to the bad.

The Bad: I'll overturn the errata, but I'm guessing you were going to go for Precise Strike. For starters, I think that's the last thing a magus needs is a base 20 (technically 40 damage because we know you'll be critting all day) damage at 20th level to droll around. Regardless of how I Feel, the actual description of the unerrated version of Arcane Deed doesn't state anywhere that your magus level counts as your swashbuckler level for anything other than qualifying to take the deed, meaning your damage bonus is +0.

For those of you using myth weavers or some off-site resource for your character sheet, please keep a link to it in your alias.

Just realized I hadn't done that. I'll clean it up some tonight when, I have better access to a key board

Also, please do not forget we are using automatic bonus progression. You should (at lv3) have a +1 to all your saves.

Good point. Should we adjust starting WBL to half also? Any thoughts on traits?

Ah neat. ABP is kind of off, but better than the alternative sometimes.

As for adjusting WBL to half...I never quite understood WHY that was the rule. It leaves more wealth to buy cool s!#% like Boots of Flying or Horns of Blasting instead of the Big Six stuff.