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You're not quite sure what you expected, but somehow, this isn't quite it.
Really, the whole of Firrine seems strange - the bastard offspring of a military fortress with grim, hardened soldiers, and a small town - probably originally intended to support the troops, but that's taken on a life of it's own - with children, and shops, and music.... and, an Inn...
The Amber Dragon, the sign says, and if you're not mistaken, that's real amber inlaid into the glass in the window proclaiming it's name. Behind the bar is a giant of a woman (for a human), standing easily a whole hand above six feet, her almost snow-white hair in a tight braid, falling over skin that's nearly as pale and covered with freckles. She turns to you a smiles, her eyes shining and with warmth.. and something a little spicier... more than enough to distract from her scars and slightly crooked nose. She's not beautiful, exactly, but more... sensual... and, you note as she sees you looking at her, almost predatory.
"Well, come in, then. I don't need two-legged doorstops," she calls, her Common carrying a heavy Northern accent. "I'm Aemira Fellwood, and this is my place. Best food in the area - especially if you like meat, mead or beer." She then chuckles and adds, "Not there there's much competition, but it's better than what they serve at the Officer's mess."
So, let's talk numbers.
Ideally, I was hoping for a party of 5 or 6 -- I find that it allows for parties where people can play the characters they want without needing to specialize on a "traditional" role - as the numbers allow for overlap of skills/backup/etc.
Also, more heads can lead to better ideas (if we can avoid the potential of deadlock discussions, that is).
At the moment, I believe that we have DSX, Treppa and Rags all on-board - and I've sent along one additional invitation to another player (who will remain nameless until the time they accept my invitation).
Now, I have a short list of 2-3 other people who I think would be great based on playing with them - but that said, I'm also open to suggestions from others if they've got them (which is to say, I trust you guys so much I also trust the people you vouch for). ;)
Are you sure you want to talk numbers with ME?!?
I am notoriously BAD with numbers. And Math. In general and specifically.
;P
Treppa posted her PC idea in the Recruitment thread.
I'm tempted to just use my default. (Wiz or Sorcerer) But I'll TRY to be more,... creative, this time.
No PROMISES, but i'll try,... ;P
Hey, every party needs its arcane caster - and it's not like they didn't get any love when I made the campaign traits. :)
I updated my draft character in that same folder. Moved the focus off mounted and onto divine combat. I may make other adjustments to work better with other party members. (As an example, if we have a CPE character in the party, I can apply an archetype that removes my 4th level CPE and replaces it with a cool combat ability.)
I have a potential player. Checking on interest now. Good player and good posting velocity.
Rags, have you tried a magus (stabby wizard)?
Treppa - in general, it looks good - no issues with a Kelishite (though you are far from home and will likely really hate the winter).
When I look over your build, though, I keep getting to 19 when I count your build points -- assuming that your +2 racial went to Wisdom.
So, from what I see, that's 1 point for Str, 7 for Dex (8), 2 for Con (10), 2 for Int (12), 5 for Wis (17), and 2 for Cha (19).
Also, if you do decided on an archetype, just make sure you don't lose your third level bonus feat, since I think it's key to your current build. ;)
And, might I add, I think yours may be the first warpriest build I've seen that doesn't load up on Divine Favour and take Fate's Favored as a trait. ;)
+2 racial went to Dex. I'm still tweaking the ability scores to get combat expertise prereqs, so don't sweat the details yet. I ended up tossing a point in STR to get to light encumbrance since HL enforces the encumbrance ACP. I didn't even KNOW there was an encumbrance ACP until my skills were crap. 1 pt in STR and putting the dagger on my horse gets me to light encumbrance with 1 less ACP point.
It gets a bit silly sometimes.
If I go with an archetype, I'd choose Champion of the Faith, which would not interfere with the bonus feat but would eliminate channel and get me smite at 4. I loooves me a good smite!
I haven't built a PF warpriest before, so may have missed something. I will check those out. Usually, if everyone does 'it', 'it' is a good thing to do!
And yeah, she's gonna hate winter and wet weather and will probably be personally offended by it all.
Mount notes: There's a feat that allows medium character to have a medium-sized mount. I considered that feat and a combat-trained pony mount, but ponies are still large sized and riding dogs, which are medium, are very expensive. So having a dungeon-sized mount fell apart. :)
I originally thought when you were going mounted combat that you were looking at Divine Commander (for a bonded mount).
I mention it only because the animal companion Pony is medium-sized.
And, for that matter, if you took the undersized feat, I'd have no issues with you picking from the mounts available to small-sized cavaliers (as long as the thing is medium-sized and strong enough, of course..)
[Actually, per Cavalier, Axe Beak is a valid mount for a medium cavalier, and medium-sized until level 4, at least.]
I wasn't really shooting for a cavalier character, more a combo Mongol/Bedouin horseman who can shoot from horseback, fight with a single scimitar from horseback, then drop to the ground and use 2 scimitars on foot. All while juggling chainsaws balancing on one foot. Yeah, it was a bit to pack into a L3 build, which is why I didn't mess with the mount size, just did a refit to a ground-based character.
I enjoyed the 3.5 warpriest, so wanted to try a PF. That Divine Favor/Fate's Favored is TOUGH to pass up for a combat-focused character, isn't it? If we end up with a healer or two in the party, I may adjust things yet again. I love these flexible classes that can backfill party roles other people don't want to provide.
Edit: Axe beak!? 1,500 gp! O_o
The penalties for 2WF with two one-handed weapons (i.e. - scimitars) are brutal. You'd be better off with Kukris - two light weapons isn't an issue and plus, sacred weapons will bring the dice up for you anyway. (And, really, they're just wee scimitar)
Of course, the problem there is that dex-to-damage as a 2WF is hard to come by -- both Dervish Dance and Slashing Grace don't let you have a weapon in your off-hand (though if you're using the grace feats, they did, eventually, add two weapon grace - but you take another penalty to hit to make it happen).
And yes, trained mounts are expensive -- unless they're a class feature. ;)
Yeaaaah, cavalier has never really appealed to me, for some reason. Not sure why.
Combat trained ram is only 50gp? ;)
Lol, rams? Baaaaah. :)
Bwahahahaha!
Luv it!
@Treppa, I have, indeed, tried a Magus. It was fun. (Once you learn how to operate it's mechanics as it was 'meant' to be(?))
;P
(All of the possible temp bonuses DO make it hard to make a standard 'This is what I always do' default set. BUT the flexibility is also amazing!)
I was lucky though, joined a PbP group that was re-starting and was already mid-lvl, which was great, as Magus dont REALLY hid their stride til 5 or 6 at least. Starting at 3rd IS a good starting place for a Magus.
(Really good place to start, actually. All of the 'main' stuff you need to 'Magusify' you get at 2nd and 3rd. IIRC)
I was, at one point, SERIOUSLY considering a halfling swashbuckler or magus. I mean c'mon, all of that dexterity packed into a tiny, hard to hit body? AND the Hat! (You KNOW you want to see a halfling swashbuckler/Magus in a wide-brimmed feathered hat!) ;P
Let me look at my 'File o' PC Inspiration' and see what I come up with.
I'm usually predictable, but every once in a while I get a bug to do something unusual. :)
As a halfling or a gnome, the Eldritch Scion archetype is your friend. Lets your class features be charisna-based, which goes well with your +2 racial. If someone were to be all magus-y, that is.
We could all build small characters and be the Tiny Heroes of Lastwall.
Small is great for AC but hell on movement unless you're a monk or cleric with the travel domain or mounted.
Or a barbarian, or mounted. ;)
Ooh, forgot about barbs.
This movie is coming together in my head.
Do we want to link our characters in any way?
Lysander, a dirty blonde Varisian man with a hint of Ulfen blood. As a kid, his family caravan were travelling down through Varisia & into Last Wall when it was ambushed - Sandy managed to survive but the caravan was destroyed looted.
Tousled hair, he escaped into the woods and hills where he lived. After taking a few scraps from the cart, including a couple of books and tools he hid out. Growing up on the edge of civilisation, it was at least a year before he gathered the courage to approach a town.
Lysander is independent, has a hard exterior but a kind heart underneath.
I certainly don't mind characters who already knew each other -- or who have close links. (In fact, I believe a familial relation is a way to get a drawback that's not too terrible).
That Divine Favor/Fate's Favored is TOUGH to pass up for a combat-focused character, isn't it?
So much so that my current PbP warpriest took Additional Traits as her level 3 feat. ;)
Putting on my GM hat again...
As I said in the recruitment, I intend to have your characters be central to the story -- and the campaign traits you pick will influence that. However, I should probably own up to the fact that I also plan to mine your backgrounds for additional ammu...er, story points.
One thing I've done in my tabletop games to help with that is asked people to come up with personal goals for their characters -- though I usually ask people to not tell me what they are until they've gained a level or two (and thus, had a chance to get a feel for the character and the environment).
So, unless people really object, I'm kind of thinking I might like to do that here.
No, that's great! And it does take a while to get the feel of a character, so waiting a level or two is perfect.
Rags, I have HeroLab for PF1. If you want me to run your character through it and verify the build (and print a pretty PDF, etc), I'd be happy to. I'm going to try to build Tilnar's custom traits into it, but I haven't done modding in a long time. :/
I use PCGen for the same. (Sadly, though, when I hand-coded the traits back in the day, it was an older version so I'd have to do it again as the homebrew file I have is not compatible)
Of course, I also added the entries for some... other... stuff you'll probably learn about later.
LOL, Yeah that'd be great Treppa, Thanks.
I paid for a license for one of those pc-game-manager-softwares, and I loved it, even learned to do a LITTLE coding to add things they hadnt gotten installed yet.
Now, of course, years later, Post-Katrina, I dont recall the NAME of which program it was, much less where my registration/login/password are now. :P
(Might have been old herolab? It sounds familiar-y)
Thanks for the invite. This game looks like it will be good fun. :)
My first instinct is to play a gnome sorcerer, which would fit right in with the Tiny Heroes of Lastwall if we decide to go that route! I'll defer the final decision until I see what everybody else wants to play.
Looking forward to gaming with you, Brainiac!
So, with our current confirmed players we're at 5 - the lower end of my happy zone. Are people good here, or should we add a sixth?
I'd like to believe this is about party composition and not insurance against player loss, but I've been in too many PbPs to totally believe that. ;)
Personally, I find the more players in a pbp, it can lead to disenfranchisement - potentially. I'm happy with 5, but equally 6 is good :D
As for party composition, I'm pretty happy to play whatever - my Lysander dude could be a number of classes. Or another idea I'm thinking of...is a bit more out there.
Unfortunately, I'm not too keen on the smaller races - unless we do really want to go all in on tiny Heroes.
Don't worry about the Tiny Heroes idea -- unless there's a big change, Treppa's playing a human.
Though, I suppose the rest of you could be small-sized, you could all pretend to be kids with a single parent. ;)
'Tiny Heroes of Lastwall'
'Heh.'
'Lastwall Partridge Family'
BWAHAHAHA!
Now we HAVE to do it! ;P
Nice to 'meet' you Braniac! :)
ohpleaseno
I'm good with starting with 5 PC's and seeing how things play out. Six can start to get crowded if everyone keeps up with posting.
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Do we want to link our characters in any way?
I'm good with linking backgrounds, but so far our character ideas don't lend themselves much to that. So far.
I'm pretty much wedded to a Qadiran origin for that 13th Warrior feel.
Ok, it seems people are pretty comfortable (or even prefer) the 5-member party (at least to start).
Given that there's 5 of you, I'd say that works pretty well. :)
I'll let you all work out your character ideas to cover all the party roles, then... While also hovering in order to answer questions and generally be annoying. ;)
I've a few more questions...
Fortunately, I have a few more answers, so that should work out well.
How long are you anticipating the game will be? Are you planning on this being an "AP-length" game? A "play until we stop" game? Something else?
The campaign is, in fact, intended to be an AP-like game -- in my head, I can't think of a way it could be finished in less than 10 levels -- if you run down all the possible things (including the character-specific stuff) I'd say it's quite possible to make it to 20.
When are you planning/wanting to start? (I.e. how much time do I have to waffle over character decisions...)
I'm firmly in a "the sooner the better" space - but at the same time, think it's important to build a good foundation to start from.
So, let's say a campaign start of Monday the 31st -- should give everyone time to get a concept, build it, work out kinks and party roles - with ample time to get feedback from me and (hopefully) not feel rushed.
What's your stance on DM "dice fudging"?
I have never liked seeing characters die through no fault of the player - which is why I like the Hero Point system, as it very much helps to prevent that. (Characters dying because of very bad decisions, on the other hand, bothers me considerably less).
In terms of opposition, I don't see the point. I love epic combat as much as the next guy, but I also have been playing Shadowrun for 25+ years - which is to say, I have 0 issue with you guys achieving objectives so effectively that your opposition barely had time to react if you can come up with a clever way to do it [or just get the right Crit at the right time].
Besides, I have (technically) an infinite number of opponents of any level at my disposal - far too many to be attached to any one of them.
How "effective" do our characters need to be? I don't really like making highly-optimized characters, but I can if the level of combat requires it.
My starting point is that your characters should be effective, though they shouldn't need to be super-optimized for combat. That said, it's my job to challenge you, so if the party is rolling over everything like they're speed bumps, it'll certainly be a factor that enters into my design of future encounters.
Hey! SPeed bumps are UNFORGIVING !@#$%^-^%$#@!
ONE mile too fast over one, and the bottom of your car is eligible for the junkyard. :P
I think my PC would rather face a constipated Red Dragon than a speed bump during a getaway! ;P
Um,... Just sayin'. Not that I have anything against speedbumps in general,...
Yeah I'll go back to thinking up a character now,...
Party Composition...
From what I've seen of people's musings, I think we're looking something like:
- Treppa - Melee-Oriented Warpriest
- Braniac - Gnome Sorcerer
- Rags - Swashmagus (so, melee/arcane)
- Oladon - Frontliner with boosting companion abilities
...of course, I say that but I've also only seen one character sheet, so I don't think anything is set it stone - take it with a grain of salt.
So I guess that suggests that DSX may want to consider a Lysander that's good at scouting and trapfinding.
Yes, I was thinking something like a ranger/scout or druid (turning into a kitty).... with potential rogue options?
I'll have a bit of a look at the books.
DSX - the Nature Fang Druid Archetype gives you Slayer talents (which would let you take ranger combat and/or trapfinding), as well as sneak attack and studied combat.
That said, you give up wildshape, so it's a big hit.
Ooof, yeah, I'd only want to take druid for the Wildshape rather than the Spell-casting. Then again, I've only ever made a couple of druids.
The Nature Fang is more like a rogue/ranger hybrid that also has a full-level companion and full (9th level) spellcasting. So, yeah, not the best suggestion if it's wildshape you're after.
However, if the spells aren't your thing - then, beyond the common druid, there's a Skald that can wildshape into its totem animal, and a Hunter that gets wildshape (but gives up the companion to do it).
Edit: Apparently, a Warpriest archetype from UW, also.
I've never looked in the new Shifter class from UW - though I've seen more than a few people call it bad - so grain of salt on that one.
There are no traits that give trapfinding, though, so if you want to be able to disable magical traps, you'll need to dip at least one level into another class.
DM, how do you feel about "reskinning" classes and other mechanics? I tend to think of classes as "a bundle of mechanics that's been tested and is considered to work fairly well together, and then had one possible set of thematic elements added on top"; is that roughly in line with your way of thinking, or are you more in the "a class is a unified collection of mechanics and thematic elements" camp?
Well, I tend to think in general, classes are a mix of mechanics and thematic elements. That said, the existence of some pretty varied archetypes certainly makes it clear that there's more than one way to gain levels in Cat Skinner... and that a lot of what people assume are the thematic necessities of a class are actually just stereotypes.
Ultimately, I think it rather depends on what class you're talking about. Wizards pretty much need to learn from a master, and so, they're going to be pretty darned wizard-y. Druids are similarly locked in, due to the training/community (as evidenced by learning Druidic). Cavaliers join Orders - so they'd need to be at least sufficiently similar to other cavaliers that they're allowed to join the Order. A cleric is a follower of a deity or ethos, so that's pretty much baked in to the class (that said, even without archetypes, that still allows a lot of variance - I certainly don't think all clerics need to be ordained members of a church).
However, as most classes don't require formal training to learn/advance, I'm more than fine with people not really understanding their abilities (or, rather, misattributing the source). For example, it would be easy to play a summoner who thinks she's actually a medium and her eidolon is a specific spirit, dead friend, whatever. Or a Barbarian who thinks their rage is the release of something dark inside them, or being possessed and ridden by some sort of spirit.
So, my answer is... it depends on what, exactly, you're hoping for.
Ugh, it's another post from the GM...
Tone:
Nobody's asked, but I thought it would be worth talking about before we start (I'd rather not have someone feel surprised by things in-game). This isn't a horror game, so we won't be spending time going down into dark holes in the (demi)human psyche -- buuut, there is evil afoot and Evil can be downright ugly at times. Sometimes, very bad things can happen to good people -- and no group of heroes can be everywhere all the time and stop it from happening.
Now, I tend to play at a level where we can all acknowledge that things like that happen -- and in fact, in my experience, some of those sorts of things can even shift the priorities of the PCs in interesting ways (i.e. "we need to drop everything and find whomever did this, and now"). At the same time, this is a heroic-type campaign, not some sort of gritty noir or survival-horror thing -- and so, I prefer not dwelling on such things either. That is to say, my preferred engagement with such things is to inform you that (for example) you've found the victim of a ritual killing or someone who died being tortured for information - without needing to get into the details of what that entailed. Basically, to let that be a place where character knowledge and player knowledge don't fully overlap.
So, all that to say, I'm looking to run a campaign that sits in the (maybe slightly upper end of) PG-13 [Violence] [Mature Themes], and where the colour saturation doesn't get turned down. Hopefully, you guys are down for that.
...and, speaking of mature themes, I should also come out and say that I have no issues with characters exploring romantic and/or sexual relationships (either intraparty or with NPCs) - that sort of RP can often be amazing - but, I do insist that at a certain point in such encounters we fade to black and move on.
Campaign Info
Would you guys like me to set up a wiki where you can record important places and people, rumours, etc. I can put the link in the campaign info - gives you an easy reference.
Heck, I might even be nice enough to put in wee bits of info for you.
[I know some GMs put info like that right in the Campaign Info tab, but I find it doesn't take long for that to get cluttered in a way that can make it hard to find things]
Just a thought - I certainly don't mind not doing it (less work for me). ;)
Would we be able to do a campaign journal in the wiki?
Edit: Working on a stabby focus rebuild and can get (with self buffs) to scimitar +8 for 1d6 + 5 + 1d4 fire [+2 more fire on a crit]. No magic items involved. Holy hell.
Would we be able to do a campaign journal in the wiki?
Absolutely.
Shifter FYI- I played a shifter, once. It was a 'Cajun Druid'. Lots of fun with THAT background! ;P
Short version, it was from a 3.x splat book, (Cant recall which one at the moment) but unlike some versions where you had to shift into a specific creature, (As Polymorph subschools of spells) you had a bonus to stats, and could describe the critter as whatever you wanted. And you gained access to more powerful stat boosts & abilities as the class gained levels. (So pounce, rake, darkvision, scent, etc) and the skill to choose more abilities to use at the same time as you gained levels. It was 'Simpler' in that you didnt have to keep track of a dozen different critters stats that you changed into. The form was just flavor. (Until the very high levels, when you could actually gain Elemental abilities)
SO I was a cat-critter when I needed to run fast, a bear or owlbear when I needed to fight. A sabre tooth tiger when I wanted to rake/pounce, etc. Towards the end I was usually a cat-like critter resembling the one from the movie Avatar. Sometimes on fire. :P And with NO loss to 9th-lvl casting, I also had access to the polymorph spells when I needed/wanted to do something my 'shifting' couldn't really duplicate. (Like a 9-headed troll.) ;)
Cant recall looking at the recent PF1 version of Shifter, so I cant vouch for that. But if its like the one I played, go for it! :)