This is the discussion thread for Ikeroth.
Congratulations for being chosen! Please dot with your character alias and we will start working on any finishing touches to backgrounds, as well as potential connections between the characters. I will be around all day and will be very active :D
As for stats, if we have Saxikath with us then we can go ahead and get started on those. She said she would be unavailable from today until Tuesday, but I'm not sure when that starts. So for the time being at least, let's hold off on rolling stats*
I am on a plane that’s about to take off, but I should have time later today or tonight to set up an alias and do stat stuff. I’m excited - thanks for choosing me!
Hi DM Omen!
Thanks for the selection. Let me know what you need from me regarding Esdras's backstory and connections.
Sounds good Saxikath! Try to get a profile set up so we can start talking to Topaz soon.
Esdras, your background is rather fleshed out. I don't think we need to worry about too many big details, but don't let that stop you from brainstorming if you have more ideas bouncing around. Right now the only thing is to talk with the other characters about potentially knowing each other prior to the campaign start.
Everybody, try to get a profile made for your character and get your backstory/personality/physical description up so that the other players as well as myself can easily reference who your characters are. Also I would request that once your profile starts coming together to make sure everything is formatted neatly. I've written a Character Creation Guide that I encourage you to use, but it is not mandatory. Here is the link to a google doc of the raw formatting, which can save you a lot of work and typing by copy+pasting this into your profile for some very neat formatting.
Hey hey! Im currently working on fleshing out my background with some more details - largely to give him a few more connections. But just commenting here so you know I'm here!
If there's anything specific you'd also like to see besides what we've already discussed, let me know!
Good to see you made it!
Perfect, it sounds like you're already working on what I was looking for. The only pointed questions I have for now are the most recent ones I made on the recruitment thread, which involved the nature of Cass's education and how much he knows about his shadow investor.
Other than that, just potential connections with other characters!
Ok, changed the format of the sheet to conform with the rules. Waiting for the stats to be determined before creating an appearance and personality description, since they are intrinsically related.
To help us tie our characters together, here is a short description of Esdras:
He is a noble of a high house and his father is the governor of Treviri in Almor. When he was 14, he joined the army and fought during the Berivian Wars, only returning home when it ended. Since his return, Esdras is a changed man, having shunned almost everyone, concentrated in a personal and secret research.
Very nice! Slightly different but very neat and legible, I can definitely work with that.
Once the others join us perhaps we could start the stat rolls since Saxikath will be somewhat available to us.
I've added a description and expanded the background for Cass. I think the description/background should also cover enough of Cass' personality.
I think the rest will have to wait for the crunch. I am definitely going to make him a Skyseer, with a slightly different bent. Rather than seeing it as spirtual or elemental - Cass sees the universe as mathematical. Take a look and let me know if you want me to make any changes!
Perfect. I know that one drawback of having a crunch-lite recruitment is that a lot of people tended just to have their background/description in a post or two, so it's going to be nice to get those all organized into aliases where we can look them over together.
Yes indeed, I understand waiting for crunch to finish some. Some things might be tweaked slightly if you end up with a 7 in an unexpected stat ;)
How is everybody feeling on stat rolls? Are we wanting to get them started right away, or want to wait until the other two chime in and you guys have some time to talk?
OK, I've read through all the backgrounds and we have a small problem of being really far from each other. If I remember if correctly, the campaign guide said that the first part of the adventure would take place in Almor, so Sevas and Draegar will have to come up with good reasons for them to come to the north. I'm not sure if this is still the plan.
Here are a couple ideas between the connections between Esdras and the other players. In my opinion, unless the DM plans on having a NPC that will know each player and bring them together, we'll have to make a couple changes in our backgrounds. Also, if we go the 'change' route, perhaps it would be less 'artificial' if we limit ourselves to know only one or two of the other characters:
Topaz Our characters are rooted in different cities and are from different social stands. If Topaz chance her background to Treviri or I change Esdras's to Flint (subject to the DM, since Esdras' father is the governor of his city), I can see Esdras as a recurrent customer of the Bell and the Frog, since his only and true friend (Bruno Ferchan) is a commoner and the two would probably meet there.
Draegar Unless Draegar also fought in the Berivian Wars, I can think of no other occasion for he and Esdras to meet. If he did fought there, we could be on different sides, or perhaps both prisoners of war from Thane at some point, but honestly I think we would be stretching a little.
Sevas In the last years, Esdras certainly bought a couple rare or lost books. If Sevas was around Treviri and had some contacts there, I believe they could have been in some business more than once, since Esdras values results and has deep pockets.
Cass If Cass indeed expands his background towards an university, the two could have met there. Esdras for sure would have exhausted all the local knowledge about his sword and a professor that is a specialist in magic itens could be the link between them. I don't see this connecting being more than an encounter or two, though, for Esdras is secretive about his sword and by that time Cass would still be an apprentice I think.
Ah, oh dear. That must have been carried over from a previous iteration. The campaign will not necessarily start in Almor, apologies for the confusion.
I have no scripted plan for a single NPC uniting all of the players, but there are a host of NPCs that would be appropriate for such a role. And I think it's completely appropriate to only know a few of the other characters. You guys don't have to all know each other.
So most likely the campaign is going to start with a colossal event: If you guys remember this tiny snippet from the player's guide, the High Cardinal of the Church of Azgaar is on his way to Yundal to lead the church and Brieca directly. This is quite a monumental event and will draw all sorts of people and attention to it.
Ugh, the hotel wifi is awful - it just ate my initial post. Alias is setup; I can't get the avatar page to load right on this wifi, so I'll have to do that later.
Will be working on profile and description.
No worries, the avatar page is tedious at the best of times.
Sounds good!
I'm home all evening now so will be ready for stat rolls whenever. Eager to finish fleshing out the rest of Cass and to see how stats night change it. :)
Checking in. The Avatar selection page is borked, so I'll have to pick a face later.
I'll have a preliminary build up some time tonight. GM, can you link a Gameplay thread for us to Dot, so this will show up in our Campaigns tab?
As for background connections, the only PC that jumps out at me as having an easy link to Draegar is Cass. I can see them being from the same academy, and even friends or rivals.
Okay, background and physical description are on the profile. The rest will have to wait till my net connection will behave so I can cut and paste things from the bard info pages. I've lost it twice now.
As far as connections go: Topaz seems to be the only lower-class character, which is going to make it a little more challenging to have connections, but I'm game for whatever we can come up with. I'm not sure moving her to Treviri makes sense, since the lower-class factory background is kind of key to her, but maybe?
I'm going to be heading to dinner soon but, if the net connection allows, I can be on again later. I'll go ahead and roll my contributions to the stat numbers here, so if you want to get started while I'm at dinner you can. Cha and Dex I think are most important to Topaz's concept, with Int/Wis also potentially useful. Str is less important.
Rerolling two 1s:
So my numbers are 16, 15, 13, 13, 12, 10.
Sounds good Caspian! How do you pronounce that character name by the way?
Yes I will get to work on a gameplay thread. I will let you know when I have it up.
Thanks Topaz! Don't worry about moving her background, she definitely seems grounded in Flint. But all sorts of people come through Flint since it's the major trade city of Almor, so running into other people shouldn't be too much of an issue.
Well I suppose now is as good as time to start stats as any. You didn't quite do the rerolls correctly but I can make up for easily enough. To clarify, you get to reroll two 1's of your choice. Just those 1's, not the entire stat it is associated with.
So it looks like your raw rolled stats were thus:
15, 12, 13, 11, 10, 10
You only had two 1's, so it makes sense you would reroll the only ones you had. Taking the first d6 and first d4 rerolls you made and applying them would give us these stats:
15, 12, 13, 15, 10, 13
Looks like a 22 point buy with no negative numbers, not a bad start!
Everybody else feel free to roll your stats up. I made a google doc for you guys to copy paste from if that's easier for you, link here. Keep in mind that the rerolls at the bottom are just placeholders, you can choose to reroll any two 1's of your choice, which may be any mix of d6's and d4's, or you may not even get two 1's.
Gameplay thread is live!
Ok, here are mine:
Re-rolling both d6:
(16, 15, 14, 13, 12, 11) not bad at all!
4+2+2+4=12
13
4+3+3+4=14
17
11
14
Did I do that right?
Esdras, a 28 point buy, coming in hot!
Draegar you were very close, but you used a 3rd reroll. All we do is ignore the last d4 reroll and we're good!
So that gives us: 12, 13, 12, 17, 11, 14
A 26 point buy, nice!
Although that does make me wonder if I could explain this stat generation in a more clear way.
There haven't been any insane rolls yet *wipes brow nervously*
Caspian is pronounced the same as the Caspian Sea
Here's the rolls!
Caspain you didn't roll any 1's on your d4's, so go ahead and edit your post to roll a d6 instead of the d4.
Also you get to choose which d6's you are rerolling, since you have 3 of them. You get to reroll 2 of them, but 1 of them stays a 1.
Alright. The 2 will be going into the first 1. The 4 will be going into the last giving an array of:
12, 13, 11, 12, 12, 16.
Looks good Caspian!
Once we have Sevas roll his stats we will know our final load-out!
I've scoured this tread, the recruitment thread, and the player documents and I can't find anything about creation guidelines anywhere. I had to reverse engineer the rolling system.
Am I just blind?
Yes, yes you are :)
Check the original post in recruitment. Around the bottom.
Now you won't get to see your stats yet, but I will tell you how the stats will be generated. Once chosen for the campaign, every character gets to roll 1d6+2d4+4, rerolling two 1's of their choice. They then place all of their numbers into a large pool, and all of the players decide democratically how to divvy up the numbers for their characters.
I don't know how I missed that.
It was a small snippet on a rather large post, and one that was completely irrelevant until now. No worries.
I applaud your reverse engineering though!
Well, to get the ball rolling, here's Draegar's stat ideals-
Draegar can take the party's lowest roll as his charisma. You're welcome. :)
He'll need one of the highest rolls for his strength.
Everything else is negotiable, but should be a positive bonus. Draegar needs Dex for ranged attacks and disarming traps, Con for HP as a frontliner, Int for tech skills and crafting, and Wis for will saves and perception checks. Sadly, he needs a lot of fairly decent stats.
The numbers I rolled would work pretty well for him, but I'd happily trade out his 11 for something lower and a 12 or 13 for something higher.
OK, couple questions now:
1) How much gold we have? 6,000 gp as a standard 4th level character?
2) Are we using background skills? IMHO it is a great system, for it helps a lot to flesh out our PCs. In Esdras case, I'm planning to take (Appraise 1 rank, Craft weapons 3 ranks, Knowledge history 2 ranks, Linguistics 1 rank, Profession soldier 1 rank). All of these are minor skills that I'd not have the skill point to spare, but that are great for RP purposes.
3) How are we going to divvy the stats? If we simply pool together and each one picks one, this will take forever... without considering the problem that some classes are MAD and others are SAD.
Esdras nailed all my questions.
1) Standard 4th level wealth, 6000gp. Do not spend more than 3000gp on a single item.
2) Yes, yes yeeeesss. Background skills are so fantastic and I love them.
3) They are going to be divided up democratically. Hmm, I can see how that might take quite a while on this kind of medium. Perhaps once we have all of the stats available we can do something in real time, such as chat on a discord channel? I'm open to suggestions.
Taking a look at the stats arrays so far, it appears that the 'weakest' one pertains to Cass, but he is a wizard, so he 'really' needs only INT. Much like Draegar, as a front liner Esdras can't have low STR, DEX and CON, and as a secondary caster, a low INT would make this aspect of him insignificant. I don't really care about WIS or CHA, but the other 4 are quite important.
@DM OMEN: I'm not sure if something real time is actually possible due to different time zones... I'm from Brazil.
Topaz - 15, 15, 13, 13, 12, 10 - 22 pb
Esdras - 16, 15, 14, 13, 12, 11 - 28 pb
Draegar - 17, 14, 13, 12, 12, 11 - 26 pb
Cass - 16, 13, 12, 12, 12, 11 - 20 pb
We still don't have Sevas' roll, but until now, if I swap my 15 for Cass's 13 and Draegar swaps his 12 for Topaz's 10, all of us will have a 24 pb build. This might be an easier route.
We still don't have Sevas' roll, but until now, if I swap my 15 for Cass's 13 and Draegar swaps his 12 for Topaz's 10, all of us will have a 24 pb build. This might be an easier route.
No thank you.
I can afford an actual charisma penalty, so I'm happy to take whatever the lowest roll is.
All my other stats need to be positive adjustments.
Real-time is going to be tough for me in the next few days (especially with hotel wifi, which doesn’t always handle streaming well).
Topaz really needs high charisma, and dex/wis/int should be decent. She can have lower str/con since she shouldn’t be a front-liner. I’d be happy if I could get up to 16 cha.
DM: are we using standard human racial stat bonus (+2 to stat of choice)? That can help us adjust if someone needs a better stat than they can get from the numbers. If we are, I’d be OK with my own rolls since I could bump the cha up further.
In combat, I’m assuming Topaz will do buffs and could potentially do ranged as well.
One thing I’m going to have to figure out is why Topaz would own much of anything useful for adventuring. Unless perhaps she gets set up with equipment by the Whispers or something like that - depending on the setup for the beginning of the campaign, maybe there’s someone who would get her equipped.
I would love to swap one of my low stats for a +2 in something. It's nit necessary though. I'm a wizard, Harry. I only need a sky-high intelligence.
Willing to take low scores to offset any higher bonuses I get.
EDIT: actually, thinking about it. I can make it work. I just need that 16 but all my other stats I'm happy to swap out with anyone who might need them.
Question - Im sure it has been answered elsewhere. But how are we doing Hit Points?
OK, here is another take. I've pooled all stats together and distributed from higher to lower to everyone. Those who rolled the higher numbers got to keep them, since I believe it is fair:
17, 17, 16, 16, 16, 15, 15, 15, 14, 14, 14, 13, 13, 13, 13, 13, 12, 12, 12, 12, 12, 12, 12, 12, 11, 11, 11, 10, 10, 8
Topaz - 16 - 10pb
Esdras - 16 - 10pb
Draegar - 17 - 13pb
Cass - 16 - 10pb
Sevas - 17 - 13pb
Now, for the 2nd round, we benefit those who took lower scores in the first fase:
15, 15, 15, 14, 14, 14, 13, 13, 13, 13, 13, 12, 12, 12, 12, 12, 12, 12, 12, 11, 11, 11, 10, 10, 8
Topaz - 16, 15 - 17pb
Esdras - 16, 15 - 17pb
Draegar - 17, 14 - 18pb
Cass - 16, 15 - 17pb
Sevas - 17, 14 - 18pb
Now, for the 3rd round, one will be benefited and I think it is fair that this one is Draeger, since he voiced his desire to take the lowest:
14, 13, 13, 13, 13, 13, 12, 12, 12, 12, 12, 12, 12, 12, 11, 11, 11, 10, 10, 8
Topaz - 16, 15, 13 - 20pb
Esdras - 16, 15, 13 - 20pb
Draegar - 17, 14, 14 - 23pb
Cass - 16, 15, 13 - 20pb
Sevas - 17, 14, 13 - 21pb
For the 4th round, there is not much to be done, but one of those with the lowest 'pb' will take the 13. For simplissity sake, I've given it to the first one:
13, 12, 12, 12, 12, 12, 12, 12, 12, 11, 11, 11, 10, 10, 8
Topaz - 16, 15, 13, 13 - 23pb
Esdras - 16, 15, 13, 12 - 22pb
Draegar - 17, 14, 14, 12 - 25pb
Cass - 16, 15, 13, 12 - 22pb
Sevas - 17, 14, 13, 12 - 23pb
For the 5th round, one will take the lower score, either Draegar or Sevas, since they have the higher pb. I've given it to Sevas, since Draegar as said before will take the lowest and he has a 17 in comparison to Topaz's 16:
12, 12, 12, 12, 11, 11, 11, 10, 10, 8
Topaz - 16, 15, 13, 13, 12 - 25pb
Esdras - 16, 15, 13, 12, 12 - 24pb
Draegar - 17, 14, 14, 12, 12 - 27pb
Cass - 16, 15, 13, 12, 12 - 24pb
Sevas - 17, 14, 13, 12, 11 - 24pb
And finally, for the last and 6th round, we once more favor those who have the lowest pb.
11, 11, 10, 10, 8
Topaz - 16, 15, 13, 13, 12, 10, - 25 pb
Esdras - 16, 15, 13, 12, 12, 11, - 25 pb
Draegar - 17, 14, 14, 12, 12, 8 - 25 pb
Cass - 16, 15, 13, 12, 12, 10 - 24 pb
Sevas - 17, 14, 13, 12, 11, 11 - 25 pb
I believe all of us can make our builds with these values.
Sevas you did a slight miscalculation, and your final stats are actually 8, 17, 15*, 10, 14, and 12. A 25 point buy, not bad at all!
Topaz, yes all variables of human still have the normal +2 to any stat of choice. Yes I would assume that she starts getting heavily involved with the local whispers group and as such started gathering gear to deal with the slavers and local law enforcement.
So, here is our final stat array.
15, 12, 13, 15, 10, 13 = 22 point buy (Topaz)
16, 15, 14, 13, 12, 11 = 28 point buy (Esdras)
12, 13, 12, 17, 11, 14 = 26 point buy (Draegar)
12, 13, 11, 12, 12, 16 = 20 point buy (Caspian)
8, 17, 15, 10, 14, 12 = 25 point buy (Sevas)
So in total we have:
17, 17, 16, 16, 15, 15, 15, 15, 14, 14, 14, 13, 13, 13, 13, 12, 12, 12, 12, 12, 12, 12, 12, 11, 11, 11, 10, 10, 8
Or to stack them up:
17 x2
16 x2
15 x4
14 x3
13 x5
12 x8
11 x3
10 x2
8 x1
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
As for health, we will do max at first level and average (rounded up) thereafter.
Nice summary options Esdras, although you will need to take into account that the 16 Sevas had is actually a 15.
Also don't forget that since you're lv 4 you get a level up ability score.
I do apologize for the mess this is causing. In hindsight this idea may be better suited for tabletop.
Damn, I love players who do the work! Thank you, Esdras! I am fine with your breakdown - and if everyone else is agreeable, I am happy with Cass' array that way.
That works for me. I'll have a basic build framework up in a few minutes.
@DM Omen - I may have missed it, but did you tell us how to handle Hit Points yet?