Wondering now if my trade of Wild Mischief (Feyspeaker) for Revelation (Oracle, Nature's Whispers) nets me one revelation, or three. And if all revelations must come from a single mystery or can be spread out.
We had a similar question come up early in the thread: Swashbuckler(Inspire Blade). Here is my interpretation for what it is worth: Revelation says "At 1st level, 3rd level, and every four levels thereafter (7th, 11th, and so on), an oracle uncovers a new secret about her mystery that grants her powers and abilities. The oracle must select a revelation from the list of revelations available to her mystery". So, you have two potential revelations at the moment(1st and 3rd level). If you have no mystery, there is nothing to choose, so you need to exchange something for the Mystery class feature and choose one. That's what I did for Arc.
I'm really more of an eager amateur here. Rednal and Slyness (and probably most of the other players?) are likely to have more grounded opinions on what is or isn't legit in general. I've been playing pathfinder for something like four months on the forums now, with armchair theory crafting in the system stretching back maybe half a year before that. While I've done my best to get familiar with the various rule systems, what's going on here is complicated enough that I'm hesitant to say what is or isn't in compliance.
Yeah, the build rules are pretty wild. XD As a player, my major desire is for all accepted characters in a game to be at least close-ish in power. If one character is built waaaaaay ahead of everyone else, then anything capable of challenging them is going to stomp all over the rest of the group. That doesn't usually lead to a stable, long-term PbP game. I know, because I've had GMs and players in high-power PbP games flake after about a week.
...
Repeatedly. ^^;
(Note that I haven't actually looked too closely at any build here, so I'm not talking about any specific character. I just know it's something to be aware of in games with flexible build rules. As much fun as theorycrafting a crazy character can be - and I know, I've done it! - I personally believe the most important thing when making a character for a game is ensuring they fit in with the rest of the group. And I have a whole chart of numbers for that. XD)
Cheers for the feedback, folks.
If I do need a mystery to select revelations, I can drop Fiendish boon in exchange for the Nature mystery. I assume that would give bonus spells, and not full Oracle spellcasting too.
Cheers for the feedback, folks.
If I do need a mystery to select revelations, I can drop Fiendish boon in exchange for the Nature mystery. I assume that would give bonus spells, and not full Oracle spellcasting too.
Aye, no casting cheat there, but it does give bonus class skills. Which is why I ended up with Lore over Nature. Sidestep Secret is similar to Nature's Whispers. The Lunar Mystery also has a revelation like that.
I'm really more of an eager amateur here. Rednal and Slyness (and probably most of the other players?) are likely to have more grounded opinions on what is or isn't legit in general. I've been playing pathfinder for something like four months on the forums now, with armchair theory crafting in the system stretching back maybe half a year before that. While I've done my best to get familiar with the various rule systems, what's going on here is complicated enough that I'm hesitant to say what is or isn't in compliance.Yeah, the build rules are pretty wild. XD As a player, my major desire is for all accepted characters in a game to be at least close-ish in power. If one character is built waaaaaay ahead of everyone else, then anything capable of challenging them is going to stomp all over the rest of the group. That doesn't usually lead to a stable, long-term PbP game. I know, because I've had GMs and players in high-power PbP games flake after about a week.
...
Repeatedly. ^^;
(Note that I haven't actually looked too closely at any build here, so I'm not talking about any specific character. I just know it's something to be aware of in games with flexible build rules. As much fun as theorycrafting a crazy character can be - and I know, I've done it! - I personally believe the most important thing when making a character for a game is ensuring they fit in with the rest of the group. And I have a whole chart of numbers for that. XD)
That's exactly what i'm concerned about a bit. We already have that other high powered game where things aren't exactly even it seems.
That makes balancing difficult for the GM and playing frustrating for players. So i guess it's best to have an open discussion about it, making sure we are all in the same boat and everyone is happy^^With each level gained or each Hit Die a creature has, it gains a number of vigor points based on its Hit Die type.
Definately doesn't go into vigor. My question is though, how do we do that? Dice vigor points? Half +1? Didn't see anything on it, might have overread it.
Typically a creature has a number of wound points equal to twice its Constitution score. It also has a wound threshold equal to its Constitution score.
The Con modifier goes nowhere in this system, so the Cha modifier doesn't get added anywhere. Wounds replace what was negative hit points before, with the threshold being 0.
Besides that, the template already gives toughness as well as +8 to Con (what translates to +16 on wounds, + toughness, which is described in the rules for wounds & vigor) and fast healing equal to Cha bonus.
Guess it doesn't really fall short ;)
That said, when we have a positive enegery channeler already, i would drop that in favor for some other stuff on my build. Or think about negative energy.
Well i see the point though, it's also fair to get everything from a template.
How about the Cha modifier gets added to wounds, just like toughness does? That's still a significant raise i think, but not as far out as adding the whole Cha score twice, which gets another +8?
The rules here are really pretty wild. Perhaps just doing the characters and then taking a look where everybody stands might be a good way to go?
From my observations, Seb typically does max HP(vigor).
Here's a question for the DM: I was originally using the Crossblooded sorcerer as one of my archetypes, but I switched to Sphere sorcerer as I prefer to have Sphere casting. Since crossblooded receives casting, would it be reasonable to do a crossblooded sorcerer as a spherecaster? I would give up "The sphere sorcerer gains 1 additional spell point for every sorcerer level gained" to comply with "A crossblooded sorcerer has one fewer spell known at each level (including cantrips)". If not, that's cool, just thought I would ask.
There's an official Spheres conversion of the cross-blooded sorcerer archetype now: the Dual-Blooded Sorcerer
Here's a question for the DM: I was originally using the Crossblooded sorcerer as one of my archetypes, but I switched to Sphere sorcerer as I prefer to have Sphere casting. Since crossblooded receives casting, would it be reasonable to do a crossblooded sorcerer as a spherecaster? I would give up "The sphere sorcerer gains 1 additional spell point for every sorcerer level gained" to comply with "A crossblooded sorcerer has one fewer spell known at each level (including cantrips)". If not, that's cool, just thought I would ask.There's an official Spheres conversion of the cross-blooded sorcerer archetype now: the Dual-Blooded Sorcerer
You, Sir, are my new friend. Thank you very much! Do you know which splat book it's in?
There's an official Spheres conversion of the cross-blooded sorcerer archetype now: the Dual-Blooded SorcererYou, Sir, are my new friend. Thank you very much! Do you know which splat book it's in?
Indeed, I do! It is from Archetypes of Power. The delightful Cosmic Sage wizard archetype came from that book, too.
I'm really more of an eager amateur here. Rednal and Slyness (and probably most of the other players?) are likely to have more grounded opinions on what is or isn't legit in general. I've been playing pathfinder for something like four months on the forums now, with armchair theory crafting in the system stretching back maybe half a year before that. While I've done my best to get familiar with the various rule systems, what's going on here is complicated enough that I'm hesitant to say what is or isn't in compliance.Yeah, the build rules are pretty wild. XD As a player, my major desire is for all accepted characters in a game to be at least close-ish in power. If one character is built waaaaaay ahead of everyone else, then anything capable of challenging them is going to stomp all over the rest of the group. That doesn't usually lead to a stable, long-term PbP game. I know, because I've had GMs and players in high-power PbP games flake after about a week.
...
Repeatedly. ^^;
(Note that I haven't actually looked too closely at any build here, so I'm not talking about any specific character. I just know it's something to be aware of in games with flexible build rules. As much fun as theorycrafting a crazy character can be - and I know, I've done it! - I personally believe the most important thing when making a character for a game is ensuring they fit in with the rest of the group. And I have a whole chart of numbers for that. XD)
That's exactly what i'm concerned about a bit. We already have that other high powered game where things aren't exactly even it seems.
That makes balancing difficult for the GM and playing frustrating for players. So i guess it's best to have an open discussion about it, making sure we are all in the same boat and everyone is happy^^With each level gained or each Hit Die a creature has, it gains a number of vigor points based on its Hit Die type.Definately doesn't go...
So, a couple things. Easy ones first; earlier in the thread it was given to take max Vigor at first level, and roll the remaining. If the value is less than the average for that die, take the average.
Second, in regards to power level; if the players want to make things work, it shouldn't be too difficult to self correct any imbalances - tone the power down where needed, or help others to find something more mechanically advantageous that fits their build or their desires. With all of the 3PP options there should be something to help either direction for any character concept.
Finally, on the CHA to wounds, and wounds and vigor in general; wounds replaces the CON modifier being added to HP every level. Toughness is specifically called out as adding your number of hit dice to your wound total. Vigor is easy to heal; wounds are much more difficult to heal. From reading the rules, and a few years observations on these forums specifically, I would interpret that anything affecting CON mod to HP - enhancement bonuses over 24 hours, Sublime's addition of CHA mod, an Undead using CHA mod instead of CON mod, would all go to wounds. Anything else would go to Vigor, lacking text to the contrary.
It's mostly a situation of looking at parallels and logical corollaries; if you treat CON mod to HP in manner A, you also treat anything similar in manner A.
Note that with Armor as DR and Wounds/Vigor rules both in play, it seems (no actual experience running both of these at the same time) that it is much more mechanically advantageous to gain Vigor points than wound points. As an example, the wonderful Fast Healing from Sublime may not even apply to wound points - it does not have dice, it has no caster level, and it does not affect CON, so RAW there is no way to heal wounds with Fast Healing. That leaves a natural healing rate of 1 wound point per day without expending other resources.
Oh yeah, we did roll. I rolled terribly, too. No wonder I blocked it out. That, and recruitment has lasted a while. It's nice that things are coming together.
We should probably ask: GM, how will Fast Healing work?
I take it that The Horned Helm is okay then?
Wondering now if my trade of Wild Mischief (Feyspeaker) for Revelation (Oracle, Nature's Whispers) nets me one revelation, or three. And if all revelations must come from a single mystery or can be spread out.
horned helm is fine
GM, how will Fast Healing work?
explain this question more -- I'm not sure what the issue is
It... probably restores wounds first, then vigor?
It... probably restores wounds first, then vigor?
Unfortunately, no. From the SRD:
Regaining Wound Points and Vigor Points
A creature can regain wound and vigor points in a number of ways, but in general it is easier to regain vigor points.
Healing Spells and Effects: When casting healing spells or using an ability with a healing effect (such as channeling holy energy on living creatures or the paladin’s lay on hands ability), the creature casting the spell or using the effect must choose whether it wants to heal wound points or vigor points. The creature decides this before casting the spell or using the ability. When that creature decides to heal vigor points, the healing spell or effect acts normally, replenishing a number of vigor points equal to the number of hit points the spell or effect would normally heal. If the creature decides to heal wound points, it heals a number of wound points equal to the number of dice it would normally roll for the healing spell or effect. In the case of effects like the heal spell, where a spell or effect heals 10 hit points per caster level, the creature heals its caster level in wound points. For instance, if a 12th-level cleric uses her channel positive energy power to replenish wound points to living creatures, she would typically heal 6 wound points for all living creatures with her channel energy burst. If she casts the heal spell, she would restore 12 wound points to the creature touched.
Rest: When a creature has a full night’s rest (8 hours of sleep or more), that creature regains all its vigor points and 1 wound point. If there is a significant interruption during a rest, the creature regains neither wound points nor vigor points. If a creature undergoes complete bed rest for an entire day, it regains half its level in wound points and all its vigor points.
Restoration and Similar Effects: When a creature regains Constitution points by way of the restoration spell or a similar effect, that creature regains 2 wound points for every Constitution point regained. Relieving a Constitution penalty or Constitution drain regains any wound points that were lost from that penalty or drain.
So, magical healing heals vigor normally. A 8 hour rest heals all lost vigor. Healing CON damage/drain is also spelled out.
Healing of wounds is as follows: The number of dice that would be healed (channel energy, lay on hands, cure X wounds); the caster level of an effect without dice (heal), or limited amounts via natural rest (1 wound point, or half HD wound points for full bed rest).
There are numerous magical items or spells that don't interact well - for example, a Cloak of Comfort would normally double your healing when you rest. Vigor is already completely healed; does that mean the cloak lets you heal 2 wound points instead of 1? Unclear without a GM decision.
Fast Healing is not explicitly in there. Fast healing via a spell (Infernal Healing) would have a caster level, but Fast Healing (Ex) from a template does not.
The simplest way would be to rule the same as SLA's without a caster level; caster level of an effect is equal to half the HD the creature gains it at. In this case, that would make for a caster level of 1 for template based fast healing. Healing wound points at 1 per round is still pretty good though.
GM, how will Fast Healing work?
explain this question more -- I'm not sure what the issue is
Fast Healing falls into an odd area of having neither dice, nor a caster level. Most discussions interpret it the way that Rednal stated, from what I've seen.
For instance, if a 12th-level cleric uses her channel positive energy power to replenish wound points to living creatures, she would typically heal 6 wound points for all living creatures with her channel energy burst. If she casts the heal spell, she would restore 12 wound points to the
creature touched.
Cheers Sebecloki. Just to confirm one way or the other, will taking a Mystery as an alternate class feature give the bonus spells?
I assume no full Oracle casting from it!
As for party balance, I have absolutely no issue with players revising their characters later on, whether to tone up, tone down, or just change. I think the Unfettered Prince will be very difficult to kill, but I'm not as sure about his offensive power, not being terribly experienced with straight up casters.
I overlooked rolling for VP, so here are my rolls.
you get half on vigor if you roll less than half.
so, you're just taking the Mystery for a bonus spell? explain this a bit more
Wondering now if my trade of Wild Mischief (Feyspeaker) for Revelation (Oracle, Nature's Whispers) nets me one revelation, or three. And if all revelations must come from a single mystery or can be spread out.We had a similar question come up early in the thread: Swashbuckler(Inspire Blade). Here is my interpretation for what it is worth: Revelation says "At 1st level, 3rd level, and every four levels thereafter (7th, 11th, and so on), an oracle uncovers a new secret about her mystery that grants her powers and abilities. The oracle must select a revelation from the list of revelations available to her mystery". So, you have two potential revelations at the moment(1st and 3rd level). If you have no mystery, there is nothing to choose, so you need to exchange something for the Mystery class feature and choose one. That's what I did for Arc.
Yeah, that earlier conversation explains it.
Hmm, I don't want to sound complainy, but it looks like there are a couple issues that I can see offhand with Bizan Ashura as she exists now.
It looks like you're using two templates? I think? Half-Celestial and Fey Creature probably? I assume that's where the prefect flight and DR 5/ Cold Iron come from? Stacking those on Drow Noble is, well, something.
Because you went with Gestalt rather than the Chassis with three archetype option I think you need to use normal archetype rules which would mean that you can't do both Ley Line Guardian and Seducer (both use the same Level 1 and Level 8 Hex features for new things,) though the Hex Channeler seems to play nicely with either one so it's fine.
We're starting the campaign without equipment other than the one epic item, so the adamantine katana[UC], adamantine naginata[UC], composite longbow (+11 Str), shuriken (100), cackling hag's blouse[UE] and 8,780 gp probably all need to go. We'll probably get access to all sorts of fun things along the way soon enough though!
For the one unique thing and epic item, I sort of think that combining an item that adds 12 to 2 stats (STR and CON) with one that adds 12 to another Stat (CHA) is probably pushing it? Having said that, I probably think that's true for some of the other epic item choices that people have made as well. It's possible that we should have a bit more conversation on what's intended with that part of the character and I'm just woefully underpowering mine (actually I probably am even with single epic items, let alone the composites that seem to be all the rage.)
Having said all that, I do think that it looks like a fun character, but I think she'd probably still be lots of fun if some of those things were tweaked.
I mean, I guess I'll pick another one unique thing that I think is stronger than necessary. The Unfettered Prince has a great character concept (though Mighty with HP gets confusing,) but I question how much he really needs the +10 to all saves on an item that already gives +12 to CHA (which already gives +6 to all Saves due to build.) Without that the saves would be at +24 + 19 and +20 which I guess I think don't seem to need an extra +10 boost?
Am I just setting my expectations too low for what everyone's getting out of the system here?
Well, I went for immunity to poison and disease stuff. XD That's kind of a sneaky part of my build, though. It basically gives me immunity to my own radiation effects, which is really pretty mild as things here have gone.
Yeah, that feels less extreme than +16 to all saves (which doesn't quite give the immunities to disease and poison, but often will come close enough as well as plenty of other things) as well as +12 to CHA as a main stat, or +12 to three different stats.
*shrugs* Maybe I've just built a character that can't compete. I've got a 24 as my highest stat (Bizan Ashura has 4 that are 30 or above, to give an extreme example) and I've got a character concept I'm pretty happy with and expect that I'll have fun with, but I'm going to be outclassed at most things by some of the other characters (skills, combat, saves, etc ...) which are based on stats.
Hehe, yeah i decided to go with the flow there instead of complaining.
Some templates are stronger than others and i didn't find one that perfectly fits what i want, so the mix of those 2 comes closest.
I'll talk to Sebecloki about cutting away different things and keeping a core of what i actually want.
I thought we only don't get no magical equipment? Without all weapons is gonna be interesting.
I'm fine with open discussion, as i said before.
Gonna add that i have no idea about all the 3PP stuff. Only thing i know is that Path of War seems horribly op to me and breaking action economy, so i have a tendency to overcompensate based on experience.
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Well, as a good rule of thumb, I usually suggest using this table as a guide (green is optimal/viable, blue is the highest anyone really needs at a given level - past that point, a character can objectively be considered min-maxed because they're generally past the point of useful returns). Given the generous build rules here, it's probably appropriate to look a level higher for your numbers. ^^
Having a discussion isn't "complainy".
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Drow noble is a 41 RP race. It's pretty much a template itself with big stat boosts and a lot of at-will spells.
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I'm not sure why combining two epic items received the go-ahead. They are already fairly crazy.
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Possible solutions to the "arms" race:
---A cap of 1 million gp: Belt of Epic Strength(+10), you're in. Bracers of Relentless Might(+12 to Str & Con), you're out. Still crazy good, but there is a limit to the insanity.
---No stat-boosters: Steering people towards thematic stuff rather than raw power. There may be unforeseen loopholes here, but it's a thought.
---No items at all, feats and abilities only: The stat-boosting feats give a whopping +1 to one ability score, or +4 to one save. That could lead to more interesting choices, too.
---Growing items(a mechanic I really like): Bracers of Relentless Might, you're in, but you only give +2 for now. Unless more feats/abilities open up also, we're just putting the problem off for later.
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I'm good with anything - I picked the bracers because they were useful and not generally accessible, and I didn't find the feats that interesting. At the time I skipped spells entirely, but I could take another look through there now that half of my gestalt is a 9th level caster. As far as races, yeah, drow noble is a high RP; most of that is from a few SLAs though. I picked changeling partly for thematic reasons and partly for racial access to a few nice things (like the Coven Caster feat - Aiding another to the party for +2 CL is pretty good utility). I didn't really look too much at the relative RP - some of the third party races are pretty up there too, from other threads I have seen.
Personally, if we want to have a bit more "even" experience, I would ask the following of Sebecloki (bracketed slashes are pick-one type of options):
- First, Pick a number of Race Points; people are welcome to use any race under that threshold, and may spend (none/half/all) of the difference between the threshold and their race on RP selections from a max of (standard/advanced/monstrous) choices. 3rd party races without a RP should be pretty easy to stat out.
- Second, Pick from a cumulative template maximum (up to +2/+3/+whatever), a single template under (+2/+3/+whatever), or provide a list of acceptable templates
- Third, Pick an epic "thing" (under a GP limit / with a maximum amount of stat boost / of a maximum spell level / etc). *Interesting Note here; the prices on epic stat items are ridiculous with PF magic item rules. If you allowed the normal crafting to exceed +6 to a stat and followed the same formulas, it would be much cheaper.
Alternatively, giving a desired "power level" - able to hit AC 40, monsters will have a +35 good save and +10 bad, etc would let us self-regulate to the same level.
For myself, I'm good with anything, as I said; I don't think we really need to flesh things out with such a small group as long as we communicate. (And I agree with Slyness, discussions aren't being "complainy")
EDIT: I agree with Slyness on liking scaling items that grow with the character.
EDIT EDIT: I would also ask for some options for animal companions or familiars (template, extra HD/Race points, epic feat, etc), but I also don't want to endorse a minion "arms race" either. It might be a narrow line between survivability for pets and overshadowing characters without them.
I got a bit wrapped up in having "good" saves. Perhaps a bit overboard in retrospect. As a rule, I'd prefer to bring other characters up rather than tone down, but I'm cool with a variety of outcomes here.
If necessary, I'd pull the +10 saves from The Horned Helm (reskinned cloak), or make other adjustments as needed. I want us all to have a fun time.
@Rednal: Thanks for that link! Didn't know that yet, it's pretty interesting. I always went by the monster creation stuff.
Could someone explain what "EDV" means though?
@Slyness: That's some solid suggestions. They all sound good to me, but you could number them bottomwise up for me (scaling items would be nr 1).
Some of the feats can be ridiculous, nevermind we don't fullfill prereqs.
Like that feat which let#s you cast all level 1-3 spells as quickened spells just like that. I have the impression that the 3.5 epic stuff might not be the best choice.
Here's my thoughts:
The 3 archetypes/gestalt thing is already high power, even more with 40 point buy. Templates add quite a bit and are really inconsistent in power. There should be some guideline i guess.
I mean we could also "slaughter" templates and other stuff for abilities.
EDV stands for "Expected Damage Value" - basically, the result of a calculation considering your damage dealt and accuracy when compared to an average, same-CR enemy. The theory is that a party of four characters should be able to take down 1 foe of their CR in a round of attacks, so 'viable' damage is 1/4 of a foe's HP at that level, and max is 1/2. (After that point, you're really not helping kill the foe much faster, so raising your own offense doesn't truly help you. You could do 90% of a foe's HP in damage, but if it still takes one more attack from someone else, the extra damage is basically wasted.)
@Rednal: Thanks for that link! Didn't know that yet, it's pretty interesting. I always went by the monster creation stuff.
Could someone explain what "EDV" means though?@Slyness: That's some solid suggestions. They all sound good to me, but you could number them bottomwise up for me (scaling items would be nr 1).
Some of the feats can be ridiculous, nevermind we don't fullfill prereqs.
Like that feat which let#s you cast all level 1-3 spells as quickened spells just like that. I have the impression that the 3.5 epic stuff might not be the best choice.Here's my thoughts:
The 3 archetypes/gestalt thing is already high power, even more with 40 point buy. Templates add quite a bit and are really inconsistent in power. There should be some guideline i guess.
I mean we could also "slaughter" templates and other stuff for abilities.
Not to throw too many options out there, but another option would be for everyone to just play what they want - literally. Not sure how exactly that would work for balance, but as an example:
I want to play a character who is constantly in shadows, with a literal aura that lowers light levels, and can teleport short-range at will and focuses on full melee attacks and debuffing through Intimidate. That also requires being mobile, or I'll not be able to get my melee attacks in, so flight or a way of handling difficult terrain are important. Since debuffing via Intimidate is central to my concept, I need a way to deal with immunities too.
I've mostly managed to get that from my gestalt, template, feat selection, and talent choices, so I'm pretty happy with how things have shaken out on my concept. I had to jump through a lot of hoops to get there though, and it wouldn't be possible without a wide selection of third party material. I'm not going to be too upset about what other people can do as long as I still get to demoralize things for better than normal debuffs and hit them with a glaive of some kind while spinning through short range teleports out of the shadows. I'm a happy camper, even if someone else can completely outshine me on other things, or even similar things.
Also, remember that with unchained action economy there are no swift actions, so casting a quickened spell takes one of your three actions instead of two of your three actions. Still an improvement, but not quite as good as it would be in the regular economy. EDIT: I think Sebecloki mentioned that this game was going to be 1d6 actions per turn, so that might change things up.
Also, remember that with unchained action economy there are no swift actions, so casting a quickened spell takes one of your three actions instead of two of your three actions. Still an improvement, but not quite as good as it would be in the regular economy. EDIT: I think Sebecloki mentioned that this game was going to be 1d6 actions per turn, so that might change things up.
Though there was talk about the unchained action economy in one post, it never made it into the rules document, so I had been assuming that we weren't going to be using that. I guess that we might still be planning it, but at this point it would surprise me?
I want to play a character who is constantly in shadows, with a literal aura that lowers light levels, and can teleport short-range at will and focuses on full melee attacks and debuffing through Intimidate. That also requires being mobile, or I'll not be able to get my melee attacks in, so flight or a way of handling difficult terrain are important. Since debuffing via Intimidate is central to my concept, I need a way to deal with immunities too.
I appreciate the idea there, but at some point it might be that if you're fighting something with immunities to intimidation you're just not as effective at that particular fight? Or you have the ability to grow into dealing with things like that over time (as we just start at 6th level?) I'm not saying that particular feature is overpowered or that you should undo any work you've done to get that for this character (debuffs for intimidation, even if you've amped them up a bit aren't going to break the game most times,) but having encounters where you can't fight at full potential for one reason or another is often part of game. It makes those times when you do get to get in there and unleash your full attack running on all cylinders more exciting!
I'm also inclined to try to let people choose what they want to do to make the character within reason. I don't want to say that some templates are off limits if people see a good way to use them that for a cool concept, so long as they're not going to break the game. The problem is what people end up thinking is within reason doesn't seem to have lined up here.
For the one unique thing, I really like the idea of using unique items that are thematic rather than stat increasing, but I'm totally biased for that as it's what I went for. I dismissed the stat increases fairly quickly as dull compared to other options. When I couldn't find an epic item that I thought did anything useful I dug around in magic items till I found one that I could tweak to fit my character concept which let me do something new in a limited way. I'm also all for having those items increase in power throughout the campaign as I think that would be lots of fun! But, that's how I wanted to play it and not everyone needs to think would be fun for them.
The 1,000,000 gp limit maybe does a job of capping some of the power bloat if people go for stat increasers if that's what people want to do. Maybe that's a compromise solution. I guess at that least at the start there was a requirement that there be an explanation for the one unique thing, something that tied it to the character in a way that supplemented your concept. I think that's an important part of the story telling that goes on here.
I just wanted to update -- I'm totally planning to run this, but this is about my worst week of the whole year in terms of school and work -- I'll be moving to a weekend shift at my lab next week, and then have plenty of time to post on my games on weekday mornings.
I feel like we're still hammering out some rules issues. I need a little time to do some things for my other games, as well as buy the 9th world guidebook and figure out exactly what I'm going to do for this game.
Let's keep working on character design until next week -- I'm trying to keep up with this thread, but I don't have a huge amount of time to post this week.
I was planning one of the house rules being you roll 1d6 every combat round to determine how many actions you get.
I was planning one of the house rules being you roll 1d6 every combat round to determine how many actions you get.
All good, take your time^^
Will enemies roll that as well? This seems like another highly experimental game?
*Rubs chin* Perhaps we, as players, should try to agree on some additional guidelines for power and numbers in our submissions? If we can come to something we're all more-or-less okay with...
Right, this would probably have been easier before we got to creating, though the good news is that the most complicated stuff, classes, shouldn't be affected by anything we're looking at now.
This is all just first draft, totally based on what I expect from the campaign, and doesn't need to be anywhere near where we end up.
Race: Any current race up to 15 RP (I put that because I now that aasimar are popular) or any custom race up to 12 RP from the Racebuilder Rules (with Monstrous traits acceptable despite being too few RP.) It's the ninth world. We should have interesting races, right?
Template: I'm tempted to say just any template at +3 or less, try not to have one that adds HP because those are confusing to translate in this system? That's probably more restrictive than some would want, but I'll propose it as a starting place for the discussion? And maybe we agree on HP to something else conversions on a case by case basis if the rest of the template is something you really want?
One Unique Thing: Any custom magic item based on regular or epic items valued at 1 million gp or less. If you're not sure, post it here and people will weigh in. If you want something better than that eventually, start with something less with the expectation that we'll try to upgrade it during the campaign? Something tied to the story of your character is expected.
Is there anything else?
Hmm..... personally, I might go for a cap on certain numbers (namely to-hit, damage, and saving throw bonuses). Have it equal, say, Level + 2 (because of the high-power, generous build rules), and cap a character's power at the blue numbers I listed on the chart before. That would still be quite a strong character, but limited in a way that stops a character from being completely overpowered for the current level.
That would be an entirely different approach, but I'm not opposed offhand. I'd probably add AC and spell/SLA DC's to that list if that's the way we wanted to go. I'm thinking of things like the Mighty Template adding +7 to DCs there which could give it a truly spectacular DC compared to most other builds, or the combos that add 2 or 3 stats to AC and give a character which is never hit in melee except on 20s. I do still worry about how HP vs. Vigor and Wounds interact, and we haven't really discussed DR at all, but those maybe shake out as we play?
Did you envision the characters staying as created and just having the hard cap at blue for Level +2, and then as they leveled the numbers would increase to the new caps until they would exceed the hard cap on their own?
Hmm, maybe I even like combining the two ideas (though is that being too restrictive?)
Pretty much, yeah. You could have whatever numbers on your character sheet, but wouldn't get the full benefit of them until a level where it's appropriate. And most characters, honestly, wouldn't be losing out on much with such a restriction. Pathfinder doesn't offer degrees of success very often - if you're only failing on a 1, then it doesn't matter if your saves are +15 or +150. XD But having a level and math-based cap (the chart has a link to a blog post explaining things in great detail) means that we can be pretty sure a foe meant to be hard will still be challenging - without the risk of rendering characters who aren't tuned for maximum power totally irrelevant to the scene. Everyone wants to participate in a meaningful way, after all. XD Being reasonably close with numbers (within the spread expected by the game) helps a lot with that.
I like the latter idea. Build for the stars, but we all self restrict to roughly the same level. That also gives plenty of in-game time and opportunities to adjust power level as we get more accustomed to the campaign and each other.
HP and Vigor aren’t too difficult.... I’d say anything that adds to HD or level based HP becomes wounds, and anything static is vigor. Alternatively, everything is Vigor and we don’t worry about anything but Toughness.
One thing that might need to be addressed is Natural Armor... many races, templates, and some classes give NA, and it doesn’t stack. I’m in that situation so I’m obviously biased. My proposal was to trade the racial for equivalent Race points, and to trade that part of the class feature for another one. This may just be a personal problem though. XD
You say that HP and Vigor aren't too difficult, but outside of the toughness feat, there's nothing in either of those systems that's designed to handle extra HP equivalent per level. The normal base source is CON bonuses which get rolled into Wounds one time. Vigor doesn't seem to get bonuses by default. When we get something like the Mighty Template which is adding 10 HP per level I guess maybe I think that should add 10 wounds total (maybe 20 wounds instead because the CON is doubled?) (though I'm also arguing against Mighty as a template outside of the stat cap idea as I think that the more I think about it the less satisfied with it I am.)
For something like the +CHA bonus to HP from Sublime, again, for HP that would be a level thing, but not double HP, so I'm inclined to think it should add maybe twice the CHA bonus to Wounds there?
It's just not clear cut when you're both splitting HP into two different things and eliminating the pre level nature of HP bonuses that we had going into it. When we throw in the fact that the new system is clearly using DR in place of a lot of what HP used to do in the form of Armor and natural armor to DR, high Wounds or Vigor severely up survivability.
In terms of natural armor, which templates are you worried about? I know that a number of them are stated in a way that improves natural armor by +1 or whatever (Half-Celestial, Half-Dragon, and Sublime all do that, Fey-Creature reduces it if I recall correctly.) That should stack with racial natural armor. If we've got a template that doesn't fit that pattern and it's not adding a crazy natural armor we can probably rule that it acts as an addition instead I'd think? I'd think that probably doing the same for the class would make sense depending on how much natural armor it gives? It does all tie back into the armor as DR in this system, but let's see what we're dealing with here.
Yeah i can certainly agree on some things here!
-races: 15rp sounds good, even if it currently completely thwarts my plans there. But perhaps that might be mitigated in other ways.
-templates: +3 seems also good, with the exception on stuff that adds hp. I agree on that making things a lot more difficult.
-cap on numbers: we might just add that in additionaly, to bring everything to a consistent level. That sheet is really good for orientation. I would even say take the green as general, some things blue, some things perhaps orange?
I wouldn't even add stuff above that on the character sheet, since we still level and numbers rise.
Forgot to use the Armor as DR so far.
As for the CHA to hp discussion, i think that's pretty clear:
Creatures with one or more full Hit Dice or levels gain vigor points. With each level gained or each Hit Die a creature has, it gains a number of vigor points based on its Hit Die type. Use the creature's Hit Dice to generate its vigor points, just like you would hit points, but without adding the creature's Constitution modifier. A creature gains maximum vigor points on its first Hit Die if it comes from a character class level....
Like i said, i think with the text on "sublime", you don't get anything out of that.
Specifically, that chart is all about viability by the numbers. Green is basically 'optimal', and by level is a very good number to be at. In general, it's a success rate of about 70% against a same-CR foe - high enough to feel like you succeed most of the time, but low enough to feel there is a realistic chance of failure, thus providing some nice tension and surprises. Blue is the practical maximum for a level - beyond it and you are objectively min-maxed and into diminished returns on your investment, as proven by the math. XD
Question is, are we looking at the level 5/6 numbers there or higher?
My guess is, templates will take us higher.
Given the build rules of this game, I think it's reasonable to use the numbers of a level 2 higher than your character level. If you're a sixth-level character with a CR +2 template, you are effectively an eighth-level character and should look at your numbers accordingly. I'd say pretty much everyone should eyeball the level 8 numbers as a good place to be - keeps us on the same page, and that's the whole point.
Apologies; when I said it was simple I meant that there was nothing stopping us from making it simple, not that there was already a simple RAW conversion guide.
I also have to thank Destined Attendant; I had missed that the template NA explicitly stacks. That makes things a little different for how I understand the Armor as DR system too.
I have no problem targeting level 8ish numbers - I use that chart pretty frequently when I play with concepts to see if they could survive or not.
I'm also good with the million GP cap on the item, though I'll have to go look for something else now. I think I'll also look for something besides Sublime, just to keep the HP confusion completely out of the way.