The Harrowing - DM Puppet Master (Inactive)

Game Master Anon A Mouse

Welcome everybody! The intro post is up in gameplay. Feel free to head over there and dot in or start roleplaying with each other, but kindly refrain from trying to progress things until everybody has finalized their crunches. Worst case I'll start things on Sunday February 2nd, but obviously if everybody gets done before that, we can start earlier. Here are the stat arrays we have thus far:

Delroy Grimm: 5, 5, 11, 15, 15, 18
Eirnar: 8, 10, 15, 15, 17, 17
Fayn: 6, 9, 10, 10, 13, 16
Lokhir: 9, 11, 12, 13, 13, 17
Kaldwell: 6, 8, 10, 12, 13, 16
Kyuzon/Chisomo/Ana/Yattle: Not yet rolled

One thing to be aware of as you're putting the final touches on your character, you will all be spending the entirety of the module trapped in the Harrowed Realm. This means that you're going to have to be pretty much self-sufficient. There's one merchant in the realm, and you don't find him until later (how much later depends entirely on what order you decide to do things in). His supplies are also limited. To that end, make sure you have a way of handling your healing, food, and shelter needs (for the latter two, having a bedroll and a non-negative Survival skill are sufficient). Don't worry about tracking mundane ammo.

Because of the above, it's also likely that dealing with character death is going to be awkward. In an attempt to combat that, the party gets a scroll of Raise Dead and a scroll of Reincarnate. I'm hopeful neither will be used, but sometimes the dice have other plans.

You should also as a group figure out if or how you know each other. Do you want to be a pre-existing party? People who just happened to be looking for Meloigne Garracy each for their own reason? A mixture? Something else?

Let me know if you have any other questions or when you're ready to have me review your crunch, and I'm excited to get started! :-)

Thanks for the invite DM! Are we required to use the rolls we made or can we pick any of the rolls above?

I’ll put the character together this week. I focused mostly on the background side but I’ll get into the crunch now and make it work :)

As for how we got together - my vote would go to us being a party already before it. Maybe we were hired previously for a job and sticked together?

Thanks for the invite!

I agree Archlich. Maybe we've been hired to do something and somehow during that we wound up trapped?

We can discuss some of the specifics of what that might look like if others agree and the GM thinks us accidentally winding up trapped works. I'm pretty open to what got Eirnar here.

As a bounty hunter, Delroy is the kind of guy that would be hired to help track someone down.

Just started looking over who we have to get an idea of things. It looks like doing damage isn't really going to be an issue for this group. Does anyone plan to have trapfinding and/or be able to disable traps?

Lokhir/Grumbaki: melee/mage/knowledges
Fayn / The Archlich: Ranged?/skills/knowledges/mage
Various / Cwethan: Healer OR Melee/skills OR Melee/wild empathy OR switch hitter
Delroy Grimm/ JoshB : melee/maneuver specialist/skills
Eirnar / David_Bross: Healing/debuffs
Kaldwell / JonGarrett: melee/teamwork feats

Edit: The above are best guesses, I could be 100% off.

Good to be here! Thanks for the selection. I’ll start getting stats done with 8, 10, 15, 15, 17, 17. It’s hard to beat that kind of roll.

And agree with us being a team hired to either find a person or thing, and we ended up trapped in this situation.

Yeah, Kaldwell will be melee and skill-focused (I'm thinking I'll have something like 10 skill points per level plus background skills) with a smattering of teamwork feats or, possibly, more melee-focused feats if no one is into teamwork.

Are we required to use the rolls we made or can we pick any of the rolls above?

You can pick any of the stat arrays (just make sure it's clear which one you're picking, so I don't have to guess when I'm looking over crunches). I like some of the loss of control that rolling gives, but as a player, I can't help but be sad when I roll terribly and someone else has amazing stats. This seems like a good way to avoid that. :-)

-----

If you all want to have been trapped somewhere together on a previous job, you can certainly have that in your background. It's also perfectly fine if, for example, 4 of you were a pre-existing party while the other 2 are new/basically working with the rest because you share the goal of escaping the Harrowed Realm. It's pretty much just a question of "What kind of incentive does your character need to work as a group?" and "What kind of relationship do you think would be fun to roleplay?"

Yeah. As our poor GM can attest, I have not got the best luck with rolls some days (poor Enizver), so being able to use someone else's is really a nessecity for me.

I'm happy being part of the group going in. I think it makes the most sense, especially for a shorter story, if we're all relatively tight already.

Stats?!: 4d6 - 1 ⇒ (6, 5, 1, 4) - 1 = 15
Stats?!: 4d6 - 2 ⇒ (2, 5, 4, 4) - 2 = 13
Stats?!: 4d6 - 2 ⇒ (2, 6, 5, 5) - 2 = 16
Stats?!: 4d6 - 3 ⇒ (6, 3, 3, 3) - 3 = 12
Stats?!: 4d6 - 2 ⇒ (5, 2, 6, 4) - 2 = 15
Stats?!: 4d6 - 1 ⇒ (1, 3, 2, 2) - 1 = 7

Okay if we've got heals I'll drop Kyuzon, and it seems like we've got enough melee to drop Ana as well.

If we want some trapfinding I can build Chisomo with it (VMC her to Rogue, likely), but if either of the other two skillsy types have it covered I'll go with Yattle.

My preference is probably for a pre-existing group too unless someone strongly wants to be the odd one out ;-)

@GM
1.Where on Golarion did we start when we were looking for Meloigne Garracy
2.Given the extremely limited opportunity for NPC intervention, can we pool funds for consumables resources [e.g. wands of cure light wounds, diamond dust for restorations]?
3. Can other's use a weapon we attune? If we're an existing party and I could take possession of their weapon and effectively use greater magic weapon using that ability to give it a plus two bonus, which would be nice since we have a two weapon fighter. If not, could our familiar use an attuned weapon? If nothing else, it'd be somewhat humorous to have a spell storing dagger with a cure serious wounds spell in it and for my familiar do something with that by abusing ant haul.

It seems like we have quite a few with a pseudo mercenary background? Perhaps were a ragtag group of unaffiliated adventurers that have been more or less successful at the work that has come there way?

Or maybe we're members of an organization, that either Meloigne is a member of or that organization was hired to help find. If we're in the river kingdoms the Bloodstone Swords are essentially mercenaries. If we’re not in the river kingdoms, the pathfinder society or the aspis consortium seem the most likely bets (from the faction guide at least).

More than happy to set aside 1k for consumables. Though I am spending 5k on boots of the earth. Move action for fast healing 1. It provides efficient out of combat healing.

I was also planning on boots of the earth. I’m planning to life link everyone and essentially redirect all damage to me. As I don’t have much to do with my move actions I’d probably use that often in combat as well.

@GM

1.Where on Golarion did we start when we were looking for Meloigne Garracy
2.Given the extremely limited opportunity for NPC intervention, can we pool funds for consumables resources [e.g. wands of cure light wounds, diamond dust for restorations]?
3. Can other's use a weapon we attune? If we're an existing party and I could take possession of their weapon and effectively use greater magic weapon using that ability to give it a plus two bonus, which would be nice since we have a two weapon fighter. If not, could our familiar use an attuned weapon? If nothing else, it'd be somewhat humorous to have a spell storing dagger with a cure serious wounds spell in it and for my familiar do something with that by abusing ant haul.

1) I leave that up to the party.

2) Absolutely! Oh, also on a related side note, for spells with expensive material components, you don't need to buy the components ahead of time. As long as you sacrifice the appropriate gold value when you cast the spell, that's good enough for me.

3) I did not see anything online talking about this, so I'm going to say sure. If you want to attune a weapon, you can then hand the +2 weapon over to someone else. If your familiar is able to wield a weapon, then they could use it as well.

Awesome, so Eirnar’s +2 is up for grabs. If we only have 1 two weapon fighter it feels like an obvious choice, but if anyone else is interested I’m fine with that.

Anyone else like the idea of the Bloodstone Swords in the river kingdoms? They could have been hired to find Meloigne Garracy and the river kingdoms are central enough that we could have each found our way there as mercenaries. We’re an existing team (for any who want that) with a few stragglers that joined up for this mission to find him.

I assume you mean this? Works fine for me.

Also character is finished for crunch.

When Delroy/Kaldwell confirm/deny on Trapfinding I'll get underway too! (And I'll make sure to budget for consumables)

Actually I just realized that I have enough focus to have constant see invisibility with Divination. So I’m switching from Evocation to Divination. My apologies if this leaves a gap. But I see Lokhir as more of a warrior than a mage, as he uses his magic to amplify his abilities.

I’m also looking at minor tweaks (based on what we have covered vs what we don’t).

Is anyone generally good at knowledges? It looked like we had a few mage oriented folks who might be.

With transmutation it looks like Lokhir has access to haste. I assume archlich will also be doing a fair amount arcane casting as a warlock (casts as a 9th level magus, so 3rd level spells), and he mentioned he was interested in buffs.

It looks like Lokhir might be planning on handling traps as he has the tools and currently 7 points invested in it. He also has maxed out Arcana, Planes, Religion, and History.

Also, Occultists are spontaneous casters, so if you want him to cast haste, you'll have to talk him into switching out Magic Vestment for it.

Delroy has trapfinding.

I'm not intending to take Disabled Device, no.

Yeah, Magic Vestment is +3 AC. Pretty hard to pass up. Also thanks for catching build issues, I’ll get him fixed. And I’ll get a summary posted as well.

I think Magic Vestment is only +2 since it's +1/4 levels. That would explain the discrepancy in ACs I saw as I didn't realize you were factoring that into your calculation (though it's still only AC 27 instead of 28).

Also now realizing that the Trappings of the Warrior resonent power would account for 1 point difference in your to hit and CMD, but those also still don't match up with your original numbers.

It’s a lot of numbers, in my defense. Will be giving it all a triple check given all of the little adjustments made.

Delroy is going to use Eirnar's rolls.

It’s a lot of numbers, in my defense. Will be giving it all a triple check given all of the little adjustments made.

Oh, definitely no judgment from me. I have the advantage of Hero Lab to help me out. It's also quite possible that I will miss things, like how I initially missed the Trappings of the Warrior resonant power, in which case you're free to correct me. After all, since you built them, you should all be more familiar with your characters than I am.

Thank you for the vote of confidence. :)

I’ve added a lot more details to my character sheet to ensure that the details are correct. Such as AC, Saves, etc.

The breakdown is as such. For the GM and other party members to get an idea for the character without reading the entire character sheet. Have some other little details, but this is the main. Full detail in profile.

All in all? An elven swordsman who uses magic to amplify his skills and add versatility. Weaknesses include Complete lack of any ranged options, has substandard HP, and is not in any way intimidating.

In combat Eirnar has life link you and heal you generally. He doesn't have selective channel, but does have fateful channel, which gives people rerolls. He also has debuff stuff from hexes and always goes in surprise rounds (which is nice with lifelink).

As far as skills, Eirnar has the following. He also has the special ability to 7 times per day, redo a knowledge check from the last minute, with a +7 bonus.
Diplomacy +15, Handle Animal +9, Heal +15, Perception +22, Knowledge (Nature, Planes, Religion, Arcana, Local) +13, Knowledge (Dungoneering) +5, Lore (Prophecies) +16, Profession (Diviner) +18, Sense Motive +20, Spellcraft +16, Survival +11

@Lokhir
I have magic vestment as a spell, but not haste. I'd be happy to prepare one for you if that helps.

@GM
I just got permanency at level 9. Can other PCs use their gold to get permanent spells on them? Also, is Lore (Prophecy) too vague? Should it be Lore(Ulfen Prophecy?) or something similar?

@All
I have barkskin at CL9, which gives an enhancement bonus to natural armor of +4 (net +3AC over our attunement) for 90 minutes a day. If you get a pearl of power (2nd level) for 4000gp, I'm happy to throw that on you whenever you desire.

I still have some gold to spend and fine tuning on my character.

Since I'm playing a more traditional fighter than usual (for me), it'll take me a little time to work out how much plunder I got.

I assume someone has Create Water? I suspect carrying will actually be relevant here, and not having to have a ton of water helpful.

Eirnar, thanks for the breakdown. If nobody else takes haste, then I’ll switch Magic Vestment for it.

@GM

I just got permanency at level 9. Can other PCs use their gold to get permanent spells on them? Also, is Lore (Prophecy) too vague? Should it be Lore(Ulfen Prophecy?) or something similar?

Yes, other PCs can use their gold to have you cast permanency on them. If no one else in the party can cast the spell they want to be made permanent, they'll also have to pay for that as well (scroll, scroll + a party member who can succeed on a take 10 for the UMD, hire a spellcaster).

Lore(Prophecy) is fine.

Also, no rush, but are you ready for me to review your crunch?

Dropping buckler to being Masterwork, which is about the same thing. Also dropping Dusty Rose Prism Ioun Stone.

Gear: 755 + 155 + 2000 + 3000 + 2500 + 1000 + 5000 + 5000 + 2500 + 1000 + 151 - 5000 = 18061

Gold Left: 23000 - 18061 = 4939

Then buying spectacles of understanding, as it seems appropriate.

4319 - 3000 = 1319

And I should be good with 1k to spare!

Oh, I think I see the discrepancy (finally): you have written down a bag of holding II (which is 5k gold) but you have the stats of a bag of holding I (which is only 2.5k gold). So I may have been calculating that at the 5k price instead of the 2.5k one.

You also have some typos in your formulas (darkleaf armor is 775, not 755 and then you turned 4939 into 4319). The correct amount of gold left over that you have is 1919.

Cheers for all of the work you put into checking this over. Glad to be in the green. :)

@Kaldwell: What sort of teamwork feats were you thinking about? There's probably room in my build for me to do something.

Considering my alignment (in vigilante form), would it be an issue to the group or are we truly more mercenaries? Anyone has anything against undead and necromancy?

On the construction I’m doing, my familiar is undead - which concerns me a little bit due to the “non selective channel” part, for example. Let me know, guys! :)

@archlich
Pharasma is pretty much as anti undead as you can get.

@GM
Please feel free to review. As people are still building, there may be other small tweaks. I assumed that the intelligence bonus from threefold aspect (lasts 24 hours, so its up continuously) doesn't grant skill ranks, but if it does, Eirnar would certainly use them.

Delroy is pretty agnostic on the scale of good vs evil, but he is a pretty big stickler on laws.

He's worked for some right bastards and some saints over the course of his career, but only on lawful contracts.

It bothers me that I can't find an appropriate avatar with an eyepatch.

The closest there is to a way around the Pharasmian anti-undead rules is Svilennius‘ Godsmouth Heresy. He tried to use alchemy to make undead, and for that he lost his clerical powers and was excommunicated.

Lokhir would find it troubling, but wouldn’t make much of a fuss over it. The big issue though is that necromancer + pharasmian cannot go together.

——

Delroy: I looked as well and couldn’t find any avatars of an orc or half-orc with an eyepatch. In fact I can only think of 1 with an eyepatch at all.

This one under rogue.

Yeah, I started building the character I had in mind before (without looking at your guys characters/sheets) until I noticed it probably wouldn’t work well. For instance, I didn’t know someone was worshipping Pharasma. I’m back on the workbench to think in a way to make the original concept work. Stay put!

Edit: I was building the warlock with a giant beheaded familiar, and using Shapeless Familiar to have it become a tiger to ride.

Thanks for compromising Archlich. I was likewise trying to think of a different flavor when I realized just about any ’healer’ type would likely run into similar flavor issues.

It looks like you were planning to sink 2 feats (improved familiar and shapeless familiar) and a vigilante talent into this. Did you primarily want a mount for your PC, or is it something you’re thinking of?

I like the flavor, to be honest. Mechanically, however, it’s a familiar (not only a mount) so it has several other technical advantages associated with it. In any case, don’t worry - I’m sure I can come out with some workarounds to make the original concept work, or new ones to propose to the GM (based on whatever roles we might want to fill on the party).

@Kaldwell: What sort of teamwork feats were you thinking about? There's probably room in my build for me to do something.

Depends on what people need. I don't have anything planned.

@GM

Please feel free to review. As people are still building, there may be other small tweaks. I assumed that the intelligence bonus from threefold aspect (lasts 24 hours, so its up continuously) doesn't grant skill ranks, but if it does, Eirnar would certainly use them.

I'll look at your crunch after work. And I believe Threefold Aspect still counts as a temporary bonus to your scores even if you decide to constantly have it up, so you are correct that it would not grant extra skills.

-----

For the record, just because you're all a party doesn't mean you have to all get along with each other. You can hate another character and still work with them because you believe it's necessary/for the best. The main important factor there is that it should be a conflict between the characters and not the players themselves. Of course, if that's not going to be fun for all parties involved or you think that's going to hinder your ability to cooperate too much, you should avoid it.

Just thought I'd throw that out there as an option.

Her priests are typically clerics, diviners (although less so since the death of Aroden), and necromancers who choose not to create undead. Her followers view the undead with hatred and consider them a great abomination. Pharasmins view putting the undead to rest as a holy duty. The creation of undead is outlawed, and commanding undead rather than destroying them is deeply frowned upon as well.

@GM; hold off on reviewing until we decide about undead thing. As a pharasman he’d simply find it unacceptable, and that doesn’t seem fun to role play over an entire module, But with a capital B AFAIK shamans don’t need a deity, so I could just get my abilities from my ancestral spirits. I could keep all the fate backstory stuff (except fateful channel), and not care about undead, which resolves that. It seems really important to Archlich so there is an easy out.

I’d lose fateful channel but I could pickup extend spell, which would become enable threefold aspect benefits to become a permanent bonus (since it has a two day duration).

While some heroes speak to gods or consort with otherworldly muses, shamans commune with the spirits of the world and the energies that exist in every living thing. These divine adventurers draw upon their power to shape the world and expand the influence of their spiritual patrons.

Permanent Bonuses: Ability bonuses with a duration greater than 1 day actually increase the relevant ability score after 24 hours. Modify all skills and statistics as appropriate. This might cause you to gain skill points, hit points, and other bonuses. These bonuses should be noted separately in case they are removed.

It’s not too important to me, man. Don’t worry, you can keep your character as it is :) it’s already done while mine is only halfway, I don’t mind the workbench.

With the ACG errata I don’t believe the VMC magus to get level to damage works any more, because the arcane pool points are explicitly not panache points any longer. It actually makes flamboyant arcana sort of bad as well because while can parry, you have no panache and thus can’t riposte.

bah, both traits I picked are regional, I'll have to repick one...