Discuss any changes to characters or possibly knowing each other.
I really like the Bodyguard plan. Magnar will be very happy to help others improve their defenses. This is much more in character for him than "Oh I see you ignored defense to focus on offense, so I'll endorse that strategy by taking all the attacks." Instead, he gets to help PCs defend themselves. Much better. And a party where everybody has decent AC means he doesn't have to spend all his spell slots healing. He's certainly willing to heal, but at least it won't be the only thing he does.
Magnar's low-level combat tactic will be using Touch of Law on himself as a standard action, then moving into position to get AOOs with the longspear. That is 3 AOOs per round, each of which he can treat as an 11 on the die (13 to hit at L1, or 14 vs orcs). As our opposition gets bigger and the AOOs stop coming, he'll switch that out for warhammer and shield. Also happy to use Touch of Law on others - it is great for UMD, for archers, for PCs making a lot of saves, and some others.
Down the road, we might look to all take Escape Route. Or at least the melee fighters. It is excellent for getting into position against creatures with reach.
Geim and Magnar have a very similar backgrounds and goals. Both thinking of Skyseeker? I might have done that if Magnar was the primary melee type, but as it is I think he will go for Exalted. It seems likely that they know each other and have come to Trunau together.
I see that Kílien also has Glory of Old, so she is also from the Five Kings Mountains? Did she spend any time in Highhelm?
Jorani is from Janderhoff, so wouldn't know the others, but his background training as a cleric of Torag will give him a way to relate to Magnar.
The three of you all could be decently good at Stealth. I could put ranks into it if that's an approach we want to use. I don't see any easy way to get it as a class skill (I would have to give up Glory of Old to take Highlander, and Fey Thoughts doesn't fit the character) but could take Skill Focus (Stealth) down the road which closes the gap between class skill and not. Or craft Shadow armor.
Changes to Magnar: I think I can drop Con to 14 to boost Int to 12 and Cha to 9. Put the extra skill point into Diplomacy. Swap Fate's Favored for Defensive Strategist (a Torag religion trait). If I want Fate's Favored back, I can take the Additional Traits feat down the road.
Greetings!
So Geim will start using a dire flail and going two-weapon fighting route once I have a few feats to make it work. He'll be going the twin thunder feat tree and maybe some of the cleave-related-dwarfy ones if I can find the feats to pull it off. He will be going Sky Seeker.
Thanks for giving this so much thought, Magnar!
I gave Kilien Glory of Old imagining that her father was from the Five Kings Mountains, and if he lived in Highhelm when he was younger that would create a nice connection for us to explore.
Do you think Stealth is a good idea for all of us to invest in? Kilien might snipe or scout, but I don't know if the rest of us need it. What are your thoughts?
My plan for Kilien is to try out the Dwarven Hatred Style feats, in addition to all the standard archery feats. She'll usually stay back to shoot from range, like you do.
Jorani actually has stealth (he has a little bit of an ACP with non-masterwork armor).
Regarding feats, I was planning on taking a few different combat feats, like disruptive and teamwork feats, and maybe we can be dynamic with the bardsong a bit and choose feats based on the foes.
Talking about Torag will be fun! I thought it would fit for a failed priest to become a bard/historian.
I will grab a mithril buckler when I can so that I can get a bit of defense, unfortunately bards don’t get much in terms of armor. That said, I’d take opinions on sticking with the dorn-dergar or dwarven longhammer. I don’t know if the option to switch reach is necessarily worth losing the damage and crit multiplier.
Yeah, I'd go with the longhammer, unless the dorn dergar feels more appropriate to your idea of the character. Or you could split the difference and take a longaxe?
Do we want to try and diversify our skill selections? I notice no one has any Use Magic Device-- is that something we want to try and cover? Since we don't have a full arcane caster in the party, there may be some spells we will want to try and read off scrolls or wands. The fact that there's a campaign trait dealing with artifacts also suggests that we might encounter some. :)
@Kílien: if you want Dwarven Hatred Style, you'll have to drop the Giant Hunter alternate racial trait. It replaces Hatred, which you need for the feat. Even just the first feat in the chain is great for fighting orcs, turning a +1 to hit into +2 to hit and damage (that stacks with Favored Enemy or Dedicated Adversary).
@Jorani: I don't think you can get Disruptive unless you plan on taking six levels of Fighter down the road. Not all teamwork feats are combat feats, but some good ones are. Also, there's an alternate Favored Class Bonus for dwarven bards that gets you the ability to cast in Medium armor by 10th level. I don't know if we'll have access to well-stocked stores, but that would let you cast in mithril fullplate (you'd still need proficiency to not take the ACP on attack rolls, but that's either a feat or a dip away).
Re:UMD - Magnar's Touch of Law ability is great for UMD checks once somebody gets fairly good at it. Anybody could pick up the skill, but Jorani will be the best at it due to the class skill bonus and non-negative Cha. There are several spells and magic items to boost skill checks, and being able to "Take 11" on UMD is nice.
Magnar pretty much needs Deific Obedience at 3rd and Skill Focus (Knowledge - Religion) at 5th. His feats after that are up in the air.
I'm in agreement with Geim and Magnar being friends and coming to Trunau together. Someone needs to keep Geim from getting into trouble.
I think Stealth will be hard to pull off. We can pretty much use heavier armor so I think we should, but that's not to say we shouldn't have some stealth. The monk and bard won't need/use heavier armor but Magnar and I will likely need it to form the front line.
You mentioned possibly taking Additional Traits. You could pick up of the Stealth ones there. I would keep Fate's Favored, it's more valuable at low levels.
If Jorani keeps Combat Reflexes, that combined with his Bard song ability would share it so you could get a different feat.
There is one possible Stealth trait, Highlander. As a regional trait it conflicts with Glory of Old, but then again he already has a trait bonus to Reflex saves from Roll With It, and the other two saves are his strong saves. So he could give up Glory of Old. Stealth also has a faction-associated trait, regional traits for Nidal and the River Kingdoms, and campaign traits for other APs, none of which apply.
Could take Additional Traits instead of Combat Reflexes at 1st, then have: Defensive Strategist (Religion), Fate's Favored (Faith), Roll With It (Campaign), Highlander (Regional), and Gifted Adept (Magic - for Magic Vestment), with the drawback of Vainglory.
Would everyone be ok I f we opened a discussion thread on mythweaver so when the forums are down we could post there?
Never used the site, but no objections.
Also my posting shall be sporadic for the next week
Certainly okay with me!
Did I miss the forum on Myth-Weavers? I am new there, trying to navigate the site. Anyway, we seem to be back now.
I Did not put it up,as i wasn't able to put a link here for you guys
Is everyone ready?
I am.
Sorry, forum has been down for me. I meant to post this a week ago!
You’re right about disruptive, sorry! That said, I qualify for combat feats as a full-BAB character (which probably confused me) so that does open up a fair number of options. You definitely should not take combat reflexes as an actual feat - I plan on having it up for most fights (until I get something better). My level 2 feat will probably be power attack. At level 6 I can have two up at the same time. I will take lingering performance as my level 3 feat, as well, so we should have a ton of rounds per day of free feats. There’s also a masterpiece that would allow me to pass out a teamwork feat (I don’t recall the name) which we can have as up as well.
With regards to the FCB - I strongly considered it but it seems like a big investment and loss of skill points in the short term. Instead, I can just buy celestial armor (theoretically) around that time and call it a day. No penalties for casting, no penalty to attack (the “counts as light armor” line means that it doesn’t require proficiency to use :D). It’d be great if we could get item crafting going at some point, as well.
I can totally take UMD as time goes on. That was my plan, but do you think it will be valuable at level 1? I was going to take enough to get to auto-success on wands but if we are using touch of law for it, maybe fewer ranks are important.
I might take a drawback too - not sure about that yet.
I am happy to use myth-weavers as well.
Would you mind opening the Gameplay thread so we can dot in please?
Thanks!
Here's a discord server to help us survive the attack on Paizo
Discord Server
Sorry for the delay I didn’t notice any gameplay posts!
Jorani has been updated per the recommendations other people provided. Now he boosts aid another a bit more, and has the blooded trait (with the pride drawback) because he might as well - he's from Janderhoff. I also changed to the longhammer and shortspear setup.
Nice, Jorani!
I'm pretty certain the AP wants us to investigate the troll and also follow up on Rodrik's story before we get to the "orcs are invading" element, so let's go with what it expects.
Greaek is a relatively new GM (middle school student if I am not mistaken) who just started running 5 PbP campaigns at once. Let's not go off the rails too much.
He's correct about the AP, I've been dming for 4 years, and a high school student. Normally I'd be down to go off the rails, but this is kind of a really important part of the beginning adventure, and you're supposed to level up twice before the invasion
In case it's not obvious, I'm totally okay with that, and trying to find ways to make it easy for you to deal with Kilien's warning. I mean, Trunau is always on alert anyway, so her saying orcs are definitely coming doesn't really change anything for the defense of the town. :)
I'm trying to role play Geim's 6 Charisma as an insensitive tough guy dwarf type. If I offend anyone, please don't hesitate to let me know. I can always find another angle to approach from.
Totally cool with me! :)
I've got a busy night, I'll try to get up a post tommorow, sorry guys.
As far as initiative, or even perception checks, the best thing I can recommend is making a spoiler with the syntax for each character's rolls and store it on the campaign tab. You can quickly copy and paste it when needed.
Today is my birthday so I will not get a post up today, celebrating with the family tonight. Tomorrow we drive most of the day, not sure how much I'll get up Thursday through Saturday and Sunday I should be able to get a post up.
Sorry about the 10-day absence, I've been busy with the holiday season and everything, I will be pretty busy this next week but will try to post every/every other day. I will try to get up a post in gameplay today as well, might be an hour or two.
I was going through a very self-destructive phase in early 2018, and then basically went into damage control for a while. Things started to calm down a little bit and i decided to start playing in some play by post games. And then summer hit and I was no longer in school, giving me even more spare time. I filled that time with a total of 14 games total on here and myth-weavers. And then I started to find other things to fill the time, and school started up again. With more social things filling my time and school I had less free time, and I started to almost dread going on Paizo. I was gone so much because I was happier when I wasn't posting on all these games, and I found that RPG's just didn't carry as much enjoyment for me. I'm starting to get more enjoyment from RPG's again, but Paizo hasn't been something I have been looking forward to, because of all the posts. I will probably leave this game up for about a day for goodbyes, thank you all for the enjoyable game, no matter how shortlived it ended up being.
I hope everything works out for you and I'm glad you survived your self destructive phase.
I would have liked to see what would have been with this particular group of dwarves but your mental well being should always come first. Thank you for the update. That probably wasn't easy to write.
Is anyone interested in finding someone to take over?
I'd be up for continuing if someone else can find a new GM.
Agreed, if someone else wanted to run it, I would love to keep playing!
I could keep playing if we can find a new GM. Maybe we could get a 5th person. Sorry to hear of your troubles Greaek, I hope everything works out!