Whack-a-Rogue's Untitled Campaign (Inactive)

Game Master Whack-a-Rogue

I've been looking at the Drunken Master monk a fair bit; really enjoying the potential there! I'd never seen the Stupor Monk before, and it looks like the changes you've made are sound improvements.

Thanks! My S&S campaign has a Dwarf Drunken Master, so it's been playtested through 10th Level. Captain Ulfric Ironbeard likes to punch enemies into the ocean or piledriver them through the ship's deck. XD

I love it! What a great pirate name. Yarr!

I actually have a few ideas, not fully sold on any yet.

The simplest one would be making my goblin a hoarder. Not sure on the execution yet but ideally he'd eventually have some extradimensional place to stash his collection so he can access it from anywhere. I'm thinking going full in on Warp and Telekinesis Spheres for that part of the character. Likely going for Fighter on the other end to help with turning everything into a weapon. He'd be a big user of the Shikigami Style feat chain. Their flavor as printed may not be that great a fit but the mechanics work perfectly with the flavor of the crafty goblin always finding new ways to hit things with other things.

This one is actually in part inspired by the 4e halfling I mentioned in my earlier bit. She also was a hoarder and I actually concocted a whole selection of marginally useful or malfunctioning magic items for her hoard with the GM of that game (One example were a silver coin that contained a trapped imp, it functioned as a returning thrown weapon that did 1 damage but that tried to hit you on it's return and that always made the owner lose coin flips, also with other coins. Another was a musicbox containing a statuette of a dancing medusa whose music would have a Stone to Flesh effect when played for any petrified targets, after which the statuette would crumble and take 1 month per affected creature to recover. Both were used for plot purposes by the GM at a later point.)

Another would be to make the character obsessed with books. Not reading them obviously, but there are other uses. He'd be a Living Grimoire Inquisitor on one end and a Tome Eater Occultist. Would need to make some minor adjustments to how he'd prepare spells on the Living Grimoire side though. My idea would be to have him rhythmically bang his head on the book or vice versa instead of reading.

Have a few more ideas but they haven't taken as much shape as these two yet.

Those sound like great ideas to me, Cuàn-- lots of flavor, especially with the hoarder who throws their stuff at people! Seems like they could combine rather well to have a goblin who throws books at folks because books are the most dangerous weapons they can imagine. :)

GM, that makes me wonder: is the list of feats on your web page comprehensive? That is, if it isn't listed there, you've removed it from your game? I'm particularly thinking of Extra Combat Talent, but Cuàn brings up Shikigami Style that I notice is also absent.

@Cuan: Last time I ran Goblin Runelords, one of the players was a kleptomaniac. As it just so happens, I have a table of random useless pocket crap. Fun times. XD

@eriktd: I've literally hit the character limit for most of the Feat pages, so I've had to cut a bunch of things to save space. In the case of Shikigami Style, I think there was something similar in the Barroom sphere? I know how overwhelming massive lists of things can be, so I was trying to limit the number of feat pages. If there's a feat you want that isn't listed, feel free to take it. I did eliminate feats that were unnecessary (due to Elephant in the Room and/or Spheres of Might) or that nobody would ever take (like Monkey Lunge). Haven't got around to adding all of the "Extra X" feats yet because I'm trying to figure out a simple way to consolidate them into a single feat for the sake of brevity. I'm convinced it's possible but equally sure I'll overlook some weird edge case interaction that makes the feat absolutely broken. In the meantime, assume that all of the "Extra X" feats are fair game. XD

Awesome, Whack-a-Rogue-- thanks! That is perfectly sensible.

So I am looking at something like a goblin bigjobs-wrangler, a hard-drinking dancing matador that is a cross between a Drunken Master monk and a Vexing Dodger rogue. S/he would handily cover the melee beatstick and the skillmonkey roles, as well as dipping into meatshield, party buffer (by debuffing opponents), face, and random. I'm thinking mostly Barroom (Alcoholic) and Scoundrel talents, with the Unorthodox Unarmed Training feat to keep unarmed strike damage up, and I'm especially excited to try out Roll With It, the goblin feat that turns the character into a living pinball. :)

@Grumbaki, Not gonna lie, I'm a little jealous that you got to be involved in a Broken Golarion game. I was super interested in that premise back in the day but never had time to apply. :-( It's neat that you got to use the Godbound rules. I was a Kickstarter backer.

Been monitoring the thread, and this is pretty sweet to see.

I am actually working on remaking Broken Golarion into a fully fleshed out homebrew setting, since all PF1 APs are out, and finished.

I have a rather awesome discord server that has a channel dedicated to working on BG. I can send Whack and Grumbaki an invite, if they'd like.

Also, if Whack ever opens another AP game, I would totally be interested in playing! I've never actually completed a full AP before, so would definitely be down to play!

Hey Broken! Been a long time. I’ve never managed to have any success with discord but please pm the link. Would gladly check out what you’ve been working on

Applying for the game, where goblins kill a runelord!

I always wanted to play a goblin oracle with the goblin-only curse Infested. It'll be a summoning creepy monsters and swarms focused build.

All right, having seen the rate at which one of the campaigns progresses I can probably fit it in, so I'll try and flesh out the concept more.

As a player, I tend to gravitate towards healer/supporting characters but I wouldn't mind going martial beatstick backed up by the bard buffs and out of combat utility. I'll try and read through the altered rulesets today to get a better feeling for things. That reworked bard idea sounds interesting, whack-a-mole!

Oh, right. I suppose I should state outright that my preference for RotRL changed to all goblins :)

Edit: I find it very hard to pass up dual cursed oracle for access to both the blackened curse, so that he can literally burn people in a rap battle, and the covetous curse, so that he's forced to wear excessive amounts of bling. Already thinking up appropriate lyrics :)

*Uses his wand of booming voice*

"Yo, I'm here to case this joint!
Straight from the blackened husk of Sandpoint !
I may be green, but I love my sheen!
And i'm coming at you with a huge Goblin Pe-!" *Censored*

MC Gob iz in da houuuuuze!!!!

I hope this casts a little light on who I am.

@Broken Monkeygod: I'd love an invite. I don't use Discord much (more of a lurker), but I'm willing to make an exception for stuff I find particularly cool. XD

@Ellioti: Honestly, I'm of the same mind when it comes to homebrew adventures. I've been in too many games where the GM throws in a bunch of "Mary Sue/Marty Stu" self-insert NPCs. That's why I'm sticking to prepublished adventures for the time-being. My homebrew campaign/setting isn't at a level where I'd feel comfortable sharing it. If I'm going to put something of my own into the wider world, I'm going to make sure it's something everyone can enjoy. XD

@Redblade8: I like your build analogy. As a player, I'm more of a supercar guy, but as long as you're not going to show up with a moped and get pretentious about how its better for the environment and therefore superior to the other vehicles on the highway, we'll get along just fine. I think I may have broken the analogy a little, but hopefully you get the point. XD

Crimson Throne
Grumbaki
jereru
Ashe
Anthorg
ElbowtotheFace
dwilhelmi
Redblade8

Runelords
eriktd
mighty-avenger
Cuan
Trevor86
Ellioti

Anyone that shows up on the interstate in a moped, deserves everything that happens when they run into a fire giant. :)

EDIT: are the archetypes you've done so far all you're planning on? Or if we have specific ones in mind to flesh out a concept, will they be allowed?

Is the fire giant an 18-wheeler truck in this analogy, or...? :)

I basically went through all the archetypes for each class and removed the ones that were either terrible (like the Cardinal Cleric), don't fit my homebrew world's flavor (like the Steel Hound Investigator), or were ridiculously situational (like the Tree Soul Oracle). In my home campaigns, I prefer archetypes that drastically change the feel of the original class, so that's what I put on the website. If there's a missing archetype that you're especially fond of, feel free to take it.

@eriktd, No, in mind's eye it was literally a fire giant. However, I suppose we could put said giant in a (giant sized) 18-wheeler.

Reason I asked about the archetypes was that I had an idea that, if she comes to the forefront of my mind, would likely be a sorceress gestalted with sword-devil ranger. At least, that was my first thought. However, the perusal of SOM I've been doing from its wiki over the past day or two might have convinced me I can do without that.

Slight progress update, I started looking into the spheres system today and was a bit overwhelmed to find like hundreds of links in the corresponding page. With no prior experience on it, I admit I felt pretty lost. Luckily, ErikTD has given me a ton of explanation on the system in the background so I'll probably be able to study it enough in time to use it. Thanks again for that!

@Whack-a-mole, I was looking into your rework of the bard and found the setup and rewrite of the base features intruguing. I liked the idea of an alternate bardic knowledge specialization in other skills and the seperation of bard spells into 'compositions' (?) with an intro, a melody and an ending. However, is it finished? Currently, I can't find the mentioned 'intro's' or the melodies of the scores on the page. And what would happen if a score has multiple melodies? Do all the effects of them trigger for as long as I remain performing?

That aside, am I correct in assuming that the scores and rounds of bardic performance are seperate pools from eachother? And for a gestalt sphre user, his bard levels wouldn't count for his magic skill since it no longer is a caster now?

Is it possible to combine a sphere caster alongside a normal caster in gestalt? While I wouldn't particularly miss the oracle spells to the sphere replacements (I'd like destruction (fire), healing and some party protection sphere abilities to add utility and burning to the concept), I do love the bard spells as a whole.

Two more observations I picked up on in your house rules:

1. For clerics, they still have old-school Vancian slots, but at what looked like very different values. Do they not use Sphere magic?

2. Fighters' Armor Training, as written, doesn't scale up, unless that choice is explicitly picked. Do I have that right?

(I hope you don't mind if I just start the twenty-questions phase here, I'm trying to absorb both your rule changes and the Sphere systems at the same time, it's a lot to take in! :D)

EDIT: forgot one

3. For the Elementalist, are their pulses supposed to eventually be "The only weapon you'll ever need?" (Odd resistance/immunity cases notwithstanding)

@eriktd: Hooray for a Good-aligned Groetus worshiper! The spooky moon is one of my favorite deities.

@Trevor86: There's definitely a slight learning curve when it comes to Spheres since it changes some of the game's base assumptions. Once it 'clicks' though, I think you'll find it to be a much more intuitive system. XD The list of melodies et all can be found HERE. It's taken from "Composition Magic" from Interjection Games. You'll find that the melodies aren't particularly powerful at first glance, but many of them stack. If you get picked, I'll walk you through the whole thing in excruciating detail. XD It's a bit complicated but super fun. The answer to your other questions about scores/bardic performance rounds, magic skill, and gestalting casters is "Yes."

@Redblade8: That's an interesting archetype. I didn't realize that the Worldscapes crossover came with mechanics.

To answer your questions, Clerics use Vancian magic (unless you take the Warpriest archetype). The general Cleric spell list also got reworked. One of the problems I was attempting to fix was the fact that Cleric domains don't really matter. As a result, I completely revised how they work. Now, your domain gives you three unique spells per level, and I increased the number of domain slots. The domain spells can be cast spontaneously. This lets Fire Clerics cast more than one fireball per day, for instance - and helps differentiate the various domains.

Regarding Fighters, you're correct that armor training doesn't scale up unless you pick that choice. This indirectly facilitates DEX-based Fighters if players are so inclined. If you want to be a steel-enclosed tank, that's still an option, but I didn't like that it was the default assumption.

As for elemental pulses, you can work them a couple different ways: spread your focus among multiple elements and eventually become the Avatar-lite, or specialize in one-two elements to unlock the additional functionality. Seventeen questions remain, lol. XD

Been looking at Spheres a bit more and am now also looking at the Beastmastery Sphere. I just love the idea of a tiny goblin trying to tame a giant (owl)bear or even bullette or a death worm. Over confident and more than slightly crazy sounds perfectly goblin and very fun to play.
Having one as a constant companion would require the Beast Speaker feat though and that isn't on your list.

So got a few ideas to work with, not sure which I'll end up with. Probably decide if I get in and coordinate with the rest of the party.

Check out the Broad Skills talent. I think you'll find it to your liking. XD

Check out the Broad Skills talent. I think you'll find it to your liking. XD

Yeah, I saw that one and I do like it and it would be part of the plan for such a character. It would help with most of those I mentioned and a few more. Sadly the Death Worm has an intelligence of 3 and who wouldn't want their goblin to ride a relatively tiny version of the worms from Dune?

But yes, that one and Bee Keeper would be very high on the list for such a character.

Slight progress update, I started looking into the spheres system today and was a bit overwhelmed to find like hundreds of links in the corresponding page. With no prior experience on it, I admit I felt pretty lost. Luckily, ErikTD has given me a ton of explanation on the system in the background so I'll probably be able to study it enough in time to use it. Thanks again for that!

Really glad to help! I haven't seen any good guides to Spheres of Power any time recently -- The Orrery went defunct, and since Ultimate Spheres came out at the beginning of this year, it was almost completely out of date anyway. (There's a really good and comprehensive one for Spheres of Might though!)

I think a detail that might help is: will the general rules used in the campaign be the core rules, or your homebrew? I mean, for example, will "Influence" be used, or the other skills that compose it? Will "Perception" be a skill, or will it not?

As for the rest, well, it was made clear that we could pick from both pools of rules, so yeah. It's my own assumption that, of course, you pick either or, as in, if you choose a PF Cleric, you'll have to stick to PF Domains, Archetypes, etc., and not get to pick from your homebrew.

I noticed the link for the half-faerie dragon race doesn't work on your homebrew site. Assuming that is a valid race, can you fix the link and/or share a direct link here?

I haven't had the tine to focus too much on making a full-on character yet, but I was leaning toward a wizard/cleric of Lamashtu.

Any changes to Humans or are they the standard pathfinder Humans?

@eriktd: I knew about the Orrery but didn't realize there was an in-depth SoM guide. I'll be saving that link for later perusal. XD

@Jereru: You make a good point. I intend to use my homebrew general rules (Influence, Know(martial), psychological maneuvers, etc). As a natural result of this, I'll help anyone who chooses vanilla PF stuff modify it as necessary.

@dwilhelmi: Thanks for finding that! I'd originally made the half-faerie dragon (Jon Brazer Enterprises) available, but after looking over it again, I decided that I didn't like the crunchy bits. I thought I'd taken down everything but obviously missed a spot.

@ElbowtotheFace: standard PF Humans. The overall blandness (and flexibility) of the racial mechanics is kind of the point, after all. Blank slate and whatnot.
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UPDATE: I'll be closing recruitment when I go to bed tonight. That's in approximately 8hrs.

Crimson Throne
Grumbaki
jereru
Ashe
Anthorg
ElbowtotheFace
dwilhelmi
Redblade8

Runelords
eriktd
mighty-avenger
Cuan
Trevor86
Ellioti

So what else do you need from us? Backgrounds? Crunch can't be done because we don't have initial talents, stat points, etc.

Also, if vanilla classes need to be adapted, so do SoP/SoM classes, I guess, right? And by adapted, do you mean the advancement table you've got on your page (with background feats, etc)?

If you've made an "About Me" post, you're good to go.

In regards to class adaptations, anything that isn't on the website will probably need its class skill list adjusted. This includes vanilla PF, SoP, SoM, original versions of reworked classes, other 3pp (if I allow it), etc. The SoP Mageknight, for example, has Climb/Diplomacy/K(nobility)/Swim and lacks K(martial). The advancement table (background feats, etc) applies to all characters regardless of source.

I see... well, first of all I need to be picked! Then I'll get to all the questions :P

And so the countdown begins!

All right, good luck everyone!

I looked a bit deeper into some of the spheres and I really like what I've seen so far. The life sphere, for instance, actually makes healing in combat a viable and valuable option, seemingly, even without class features to boost its effectiveness. Wonder what it's like in actual practise when paired with destruction (fire) and a buffing sphere for utility?

The Life Sphere itself has talents for healing, dealing, buffing and debuffing, WOOO!, son of a gun. And it can do it to multiple targets and from close range. It's just that cool.

Yeah, spheres are usually rather versatile. Destruction is pretty much just damage and debuffs, but other than that, IIRC you can focus exclusively on a single sphere and fill multiple roles. Even the Divination, Illusion, and Mind spheres have damaging options. XD

I don't know if there's much specific synergy between Destruction and Life. If you have channel energy, there's a feat (Channel Destruction) to add one of your blast types to the channel, which is pretty good with Selective Blast and/or Selective Channel, especially vs undead.

I also really like the Invigorating Rally feat, which lets a spherecaster combine War rallies with Life invigorates. That requires an investment in the War sphere, but as a buffing sphere that also might be very appropriate for your character concept, Trevor!

Oh, my option for the all-goblin game would have been a Dual Channeler Soul Weaver, which turns Channeling into a pretty impressive feature adding effects from Destruction and Life. I love it when builds that were supposed to be trash get revamped and become playable and enjoyable.

I also really like the Invigorating Rally feat, which lets a spherecaster combine War rallies with Life invigorates. That requires an investment in the War sphere, but as a buffing sphere that also might be very appropriate for your character concept, Trevor!

Hm, that sounds interesting! I should look into that, a very brief glance at war and life seems they'd combine nicely for proactive and reactive healing and war actually does seem to have some good buffs.

The only bad thing about this though is that part of me believes a goblin rapper should be focussed on literally and figuratively roasting people first by really turning up the heat. Seems like the destruction (fire) sphere would be a must? Though I suppose only taking a few fire talents might be enough to cover this subjective requirement. And the blackened oracle curse under the new rules seems to grant a fire/destruction sphere.

There's also something to be said for the inverse Life sphere damage options, where you insult someone so hard they literally die of shame.

Good luck everyone!

Selection time! Nobody else has posted, so that means I can go straight to choosing. Hold please.

*cues Jeopardy theme*
...
...
As it turns out, having only 16 total applicants split across two campaigns doesn't make my final decision any easier. Each of you is someone I'd enjoy gaming with at some point, and if I had the available time and energy to run 5-6 campaigns right now, I'd do so in order to take everyone. Unfortunately, that'll lead to GM burnout, and then everybody's sorry. :-( Instead, if your name isn't listed below, feel free to lurk on one or both of the campaigns. If someone has to bow out, you'll be the first people I turn to. As for the six of you, click on your respective link for further instructions.

Curse of the Crimson Throne
Grumbaki
Jereru
Redblade8

Rise of the Goblin Runelords
Cuan
eriktd
Trevor86

Have a great game, everyone!

I'll go ahead and start lurking the RotGR thread.

Oof. Just saw this this evening. Feel like I missed one hell of a boat...