Welcome aboard folks.
Please finish up your characters and feel free to make tweaks now that you know what the rest of the part if going to be.
If you have any questions, let me know.
While I'm thinking about it, here's the basic ground rules that I like to use for PbPs:
1. If you need to get my attention, post in the discussion thread. I generally check the boards at least once a day, but I have a terrible habit of ignoring a gameplay thread if it only has like 1 new post (especially if it's combat and the whole party is up). I always check new discussion posts, so if you need a quick clarification post it here.
2. I hate botting PCs. It's not a problem if you're away for a bit, and please let me know if you will be, but your PC will just kind of hang around in the periphery during that time. Also if you just disappear and don't post for a week without giving notice, I'll be dropping you from the campaign.
3. For the sake of speed, I'm going to go to start by using the "rule of two" where if someone seconds an action, it is assumed to be the consensus decision for the party. If this ends up being problematic, then we will change it.
4. Baring specific direction from the party, I'm going to assume the 'right hand rule' of dungeon exploration as the default. (Take the right hand passage, check the right door, etc).
5. In combat, I may occasionally skip your turn. If 4/5 people have posted their actions and I have the time to post, I'll probably move onto the next round. If you get skipped, you can just take two turns in a row in your next post. I promise not to beat up on the person who I skip.
6. I will roll initiative and I do block initiative, with individual rolls for the PCs and one roll for the enemies.
7. I'll be using google drawings for the maps and you will be able to move your own tokens.
I think covers most of it. Let me know if you have any questions.
Greetings to everyone, I'm excited to get to play with all of you.
As for my character, I have a few minor last minute updates to do. Namely decisions in regards to feats. My first few feats will be spoken for due to grabbing deft maneuvers, and the Orator feat. I had been considering TWF, But I don't think that would fit well, even though it would make his full attacks down right terrifying with challenge and studied target.
Either way, Brandt won't really come "online" until around level 4, where he can start making use of studied target+challenge and buffs from alchemy.
On the whole, he is primarily a skill focused character, with good combat presence.
The door to the discussion room creaks open. A small nose sticks itself through, followed by the slightly-dirty face of a human boy of maybe 12 years of age. Seeing only one man present, and his a familiar face from Froy’s many days at his portrait booth, the youth slips in all the way, offering a shy smile by way of greeting.
Hooray! So happy to be able to play this character again. Maybe this time he’ll get to level 2!
Destin, I see you are a member of the city guard. The human boy persona Froy has a portrait booth at the bases of Coaltongue’s statue and was sort of adopted by many city guardsmen. Would you be okay with a prior meeting/acquaintance-ship?
GM, thanks so much for taking me. Would you be able to create a gameplay thread that we could dot and delete so the game appears on the campaign tab? Your additional rules/procedures are all fine by me.
Also, Gilfroy is a bit of a polyglot. I selected his starting languages, and he’s going to learn a lot more over the course of the campaign. Are his starting choices okay, and are there others he would have been more likely to learn as a youth?
Common, Draconic, Elvish, Gnomish, Orcish, Goblin
Gameplay thread is up.
@Gilfroy: Those are fine languages. Others that you might get some millage out of include: Sylvan, Celestial, Infernal, dwarvan, Ignan, Aquan and Auran.
Hello all
Being a Ragesian deserter I suspect Eleana would also be in contact with the city guard. She would have sought them out to tell of rumours about a supposed invasion of Gatepass.
They in turn probably would have arrested her because she's a deserter and then released her when the threat from the Ragesian army became apparent and she pledged herself to Gatepass's defense.
As for her role, Eleana will probably not do a whole lot of damage, at least not for a while. She can hit things and she can be a nuisance on the battlefield and can help out allies.
For starters, all allies within 10 ft. of her get a +1 morale bonus to AC and Will.
Oh, and she speaks Celestial. Part of the course when worshipping an angel I guess.
Thank you for having me! Glad to be here. Also I changed the avatar, because this is the closest that I could find to what I envisioned Khardon looking like, with his face being scarred by the flame. Figure that if I'm going to be running around with a low charisma then the avatar should match. :)
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"all allies within 10 ft. of her get a +1 morale bonus to AC and Will." - Eleana
Sounds like it'll be worth staying close to her side.
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Hey everyone and thanks for selecting me, Fanguar!
I'll get to working on Arakar's detailed stat sheet somewhere tonight. I'll probably make him an archer with good backup melee capacity who focusses strongly on party buffs and ranged damage. Warlord seems to be an improved fighter of sorts with a side focus on teamwork feats. He should be good to go right from level 1. Still sorta doubting whether or not to take toughness or lingering inspiration first or going straight archery right away. Without toughness he's sorta frail with just 12 con and his FCB going into partial bonus feats.
I'll go with Urban Skald as the caster half to give everyone morale bonusses to str, dex and con as his main 'bard song', unless there are major mechanical problems with that in someone's build. Half-orc warlord/skald gestalt gets the ability to share the Amplified Rage teamwork feat at level 3 which makes it a huge str/con buff for everyone with some dex too. However, it takes two turns to active this combo until level 7.
Out of combat I probably won't be that good. I'll have decent social skills and some knowledge thanks to bardic knowledge, but that's pretty much it.
@Destin Afraid I'm too unfamiliar with samurai or investigator to offer concrete advice. One question though, your ability scores seem very high for a 15 point buy game as a human (21 points?). Or did you take the alternate race trait that gives up the feat and skill point?
@Gilfroy Were you in the War for the Crown gestalt campaign some time ago? If so, did that end prematurely? I reallly regretted not making it into that one at the time as it sounded awesome!
@Eleana Seems like we're both deserters for very similar reasons :) I think our characters would probably get along well.
@Khardon That was some truly great flavor picking of the gestalt halves XD
@Gilfroy Were you in the War for the Crown gestalt campaign some time ago? If so, did that end prematurely? I reallly regretted not making it into that one at the time as it sounded awesome!
I was and it barely made it anywhere before the GM left due to mental health complaints.
@Gilfroy That sounds fine, Brandt wouldn't be overly kind, but would be fair.
@Eleana depending, Brandt could have been the one to see your release.
@Arakar, I'm thinking about taking the trait. Though leaning towards not. His ability scores are far from finalized atm. Which may be why they seem all over the place. I normally build higher than the point buy(usually about 5pts higher) and slowly work my way down to the proper pt buy by looking at what exactly each one gives both flavor wise and mechanic wise. Technically speaking, rage takes nothing from Investigator. As he can use extracts/studied target even under normal rage oddly enough. So I would not complain about bonuses.
I'm also not sure on which order to take, atm I'm considering Order of the Monument. But I've also been looking at Knight Errant.
Knight Errant surprisingly fits, due to Brandt technically going AWOL and joining the resistance. And plays into what I hope will be his character development(Finding his own way, in a way). The issue with the other mechanically is I likely won't have points to spare much for bumping charisma up. So it won't really give much until level 15. And IDK if we are even planning to reach that level. Though order of the monuments bonuses are certainly nice at 15.
Gil would definitely prefer not to rage, if it inhibits his spellcasting. However, one can usually choose to not accept these sorts of effects, so he would just take a deep breath and ignore it.
On the rage, it depends I think.
Ideally I'd have my buffing spells already rolling at the start of combat and if that is the case I'd have no issue at all with rage. Then again, it does limit my versatility as it blocks casting.
@Arakar, I do see a small issue with getting along: Eleana is very devout and that might clash with Arakar's dislike of gods. The fact that her deity is an angelic general and not an aloof god might help but I still suspect that could be a source of friction.
@Destin, to Eleana that wouldn't really matter either way. She had expected to arrested and would not fault any guard for doing their duty.
Gilfroy is a born party face, both in lying and negotiating. Intimidation, he'll have to leave to others.
He uses a lot of illusions. One trick he likes to use early on is to use silent image to create a cloud of fog like obscuring mist. Since the party knows its an illusion, they get a bonus to disbelieve it, and then their vision isn't hampered, whereas any mooks that fail their Will save can't see beyond 5 feet. He's also known to use ghost sound to make foot scuffing noises, pretending there's an invisible person behind them.
When the tricks fail, however, he has colour spray, and his heavens mystery means that starting at level 3, colour spray will remain a viable spell for him for quite a while.
With Orator, Brandt can use his linguistics skill in place of diplomacy, bluff, or intimidate. (for all applications save gather info, and to feint)
Oddly enough, I didn't realize this at the time but I can spend inspiration on linguistic checks for free. So Brandt will have, basically, a bonus for face skills of +10+1d6. If I take Orator at first level. All this said, I could -not- go this route to avoid stepping on toes.
Gilfroy can be a diplomat and party face: he'd prefer not to have to be the centre of attention all the time, however.
The nature of gestalt is that everybody gets duplicated in some way.
Yup. Even poor disfigured Khardon has +3 diplomacy and +1 intimidate. So he can at least try to talk to people. Also took conservative diplomacy. So can't roll lower than a 5 or higher than a 5. So right now his diplomacy range is 8-18.
What's nice about this campaign, is that we have low point buy, which limits how effective any PC can be at any one thing. However, we have gestalt, which gives every PC double the amount of options that they would normally have available.
If allowed I'd actually like to swap my stats for Dex and Cha. Initially went with 12 Cha for the extra channel but in hindsight +1 AC and +1 Init would be better for my character, mechanically and I think thematically as well, favoring both stronger defense and a better way to defend others.
Theoretically turning Cha into an 8 and using those 2 points to prop Wisdom up to 17 would be better still but that's probably a bit much post selection
On the rage, it depends I think.
Ideally I'd have my buffing spells already rolling at the start of combat and if that is the case I'd have no issue at all with rage. Then again, it does limit my versatility as it blocks casting.
@Arakar, I do see a small issue with getting along: Eleana is very devout and that might clash with Arakar's dislike of gods. The fact that her deity is an angelic general and not an aloof god might help but I still suspect that could be a source of friction.
@Destin, to Eleana that wouldn't really matter either way. She had expected to arrested and would not fault any guard for doing their duty.
Urban Skald's rage is special in that it doesn't block casting nor inhibits what skills you can use, so that shouldn't be a problem!
What is a problem though is that I misread urban skald and that the bard bonus isn't +2str, dex and con but +2 str, dex OR con... which reaches a total of a dividable +4 at level 8 and +6 at 16. Essentially, without the amplified rage rage power it does barely anything, it's locked into str and later con and it can only be used effectively from level 8 when both str and con can be boosted, which will take forever.
I'll need to think a bit on how to alter it with this new information. Perhaps I'll drop Skald in favor of a bard variant to instead have inspire courage. Or go with the original idea of warlord/battle oracle, perhaps... though changing to a caster class outside of the suggested two in the final submission would require DM approval. Battle oracle is probably more flavorful but slightly reflavored bard works to. Though it is limited to light armor and discourages melee I suppose.
And you're right, I momentarily forgot about the religion problem. There'd be potentially a lot of friction there.
What's nice about this campaign, is that we have low point buy, which limits how effective any PC can be at any one thing. However, we have gestalt, which gives every PC double the amount of options that they would normally have available.
That was the plan. Hope it works out in practice.
If allowed I'd actually like to swap my stats for Dex and Cha. Initially went with 12 Cha for the extra channel but in hindsight +1 AC and +1 Init would be better for my character, mechanically and I think thematically as well, favoring both stronger defense and a better way to defend others.
Theoretically turning Cha into an 8 and using those 2 points to prop Wisdom up to 17 would be better still but that's probably a bit much post selection
You're free to fiddle with your stats. Not going to lie, I haven't even looked at your ability score distribution.
@Arakar: Controlled Inspired Rage vs Inspire Courage is kind of a wash in my opinion. Inspired Rage gives you the option to choose the ability to buff and can up AC which is nice. Personally, the real advantage of Skald is being able to give people Rage Powers, as being able to give the whole party pounce (or what have you), seems kind of busted. Also, Spell kenning can be pretty great in an emergency. That being said, if you want to swap out your spellcasting that's ok, but I would ask that you don't choose a class already found in the party.
Rage powers are indeed amazing. And I’m more of a fan of controlled inspired rage, personally, as there is no AC penalty. Just giving everyone a straight +2 Str is nice in and of itself.
you also don't need to worry about same type bonuses if you are boosting a stat.
Level 7 will be when Brandt hits his peak. Well, not "peak", but being able to shift into a gargoyle with all those natural attacks with challenge and studied combat will be a huge combat boost.
Also note, for dex focused characters, skald provides a lot.
Honestly, at the end of the day, my suggestion is to pick what you think fits the character better flavor wise. As honestly, its largely a wash IMO.
@Arakar: Controlled Inspired Rage vs Inspire Courage is kind of a wash in my opinion. Inspired Rage gives you the option to choose the ability to buff and can up AC which is nice. Personally, the real advantage of Skald is being able to give people Rage Powers, as being able to give the whole party pounce (or what have you), seems kind of busted. Also, Spell kenning can be pretty great in an emergency. That being said, if you want to swap out your spellcasting that's ok, but I would ask that you don't choose a class already found in the party.
Thanks for the comments, everyone!
Giving people pounce is something that's often brought up in discussions on skalds but that only comes online at level 12, which is relatively late in the campaign. It also technically gives up the first rage power since lesser bear totem usually doesn't help people much. And at level 12, many classes have their own option to pounce such as by shapeshifting or dimensional agility teleport feats. Thus, I'm not even sure how good it would be then. It does however potentially save resources for others, and it does give a scaling natural armor bonus from the middle totem.
@Khardoun Against base inspire courage from the bard, I'd argue the controlled skald song is weaker. Eleana attacks using wisdom, Gilfroy has 5 str and probably likes dex more and as an archer I'd prefer dex too, vs the melee who probably like str a lot more. Inspire courage from bard however combines both the damage and to hit benefit for everyone regardless of attack stat and it also scales faster than the skald song. Competence boni to attacks are also fairly rare in my experience?
@Destin Which dex benefits of skalds are you talking about?
I need to think on it some more, currently leaning towards bard. Could always cast the Blood Rage bard spell to replicate the 'losing yourself in a blood frenzy' flavor the skald has going for him.
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Whatever works for you. Pounce was just an example, the Superstition/Witch hunter/Spell sunder line is also really strong. But really it's totally up to you, they're both great classes. You're gestalt PCs so you don't really need to be optimized to be successful in the AP and hey, if you go bard you get to save a feat on a sweet whip build, so it has that going for it ;)
Whatever works for you. Pounce was just an example, the Superstition/Witch hunter/Spell sunder line is also really strong. But really it's totally up to you, they're both great classes. You're gestalt PCs so you don't really need to be optimized to be successful in the AP and hey, if you go bard you get to save a feat on a sweet whip build, so it has that going for it ;)
Fair enough! I guess I'll simply stick with bard, i'm biased towards it as it's probably my favorite PF1 class and I don't get to gestalt it often :) Especially with a rare class like warlord!
If allowed I'd actually like to swap my stats for Dex and Cha. Initially went with 12 Cha for the extra channel but in hindsight +1 AC and +1 Init would be better for my character, mechanically and I think thematically as well, favoring both stronger defense and a better way to defend others.
Theoretically turning Cha into an 8 and using those 2 points to prop Wisdom up to 17 would be better still but that's probably a bit much post selectionYou're free to fiddle with your stats. Not going to lie, I haven't even looked at your ability score distribution.
In that case I now have 8 Charisma with those 4 points going to Dex and Wis instead. Rather fits with how I envision her as representing 'Good' does not equate 'Nice'.
As for the Bard vs Skald thing, it does mean a bit of bookkeeping with things like Inspire Courage and my Aegis. IC gives +1 morale bonus on saves vs Charm and Fear whereas Aegis gives people near me a morale bonus on all Will saves.
A similar thing with my Inspiring Word domain power, though I think that will be less of an issue.
After having a longer time to study the maneuvers in-depth today, I think I'll stick with Skald after all. Warlord maneuvers, at least the teamwork kinds I'd want to go for, really favor melee, and tbh the flavor of the skald and rage powers for the half-orc warlord character seems stronger than the bard flavor. I'll simply go melee with urban skald and focus heavily on strength to hit with the maneuver buffs.
If anyone has requests for which rage powers to pick when we get there, please let me know! Other than reckless stance, clear mind and either the spirit or bear line of totems I don't have anything currently in mind for it. Superstition and witch hunter could be alternatives though morale boni on saves will eventually become obsolete with the maneuvers and Good Hope.
Unfortunately, since a d&d session ran 2 hours late today I wasn't able to finish the character sheet. Will get back to it tomorrow! For now I posted in the thread for some roleplaying in advance.
Spirit totem is great! Especially for an entire party. And thematically, having spirits surround party members to help them / attack the party's enemies is quite cool.
Pounce is never bad, especially in a melee heavy party. So beast totem would be good. If you can provide stance powers, the guarded stance AC bonus is also a good one to take. My personal preference over reckless.
At the end of the day, it's hard to go wrong with giving out rage powers. Take what you think Arakar would have, and I'm sure that we'll all be thankful for whatever buffs it gives us.
Finally finished the character sheet, sorry it took so long! Was a bit swamped with family matters and reading up through all the warlord abilities.
@Destin apologies, reading back it seems I ignored an interaction attempt twice from your character. I'll pioritise Destin a bit when we presumably get out of danger.
Slight edit on my turn, I overlooked the link for the combat map and the starting positions, where I'm at the table rather than close to the door that opened (also front, not back). Instead Arakar simply moves to the square he's in and uses the extra +5 ft reach piercing strike has to attack the two men from there. Rest of the turn plays out the exact same way.
I'm going to go with Knight Errant for his Order. I can reflavor the ability names if you would like.
Seems like you might have rolled a crit, Destin! Want to confirm? Might matter in this situation.
Just an fyi, I'm stuck with a Covid infection at the moment. I'm recovering quite well but I'm not quite there yet.
I'll back into the game asap, but that might not be quite yet.
Oof. Wish you the best.
All the best, Cuan. Hope you recover soon!
Just an fyi, I'm stuck with a Covid infection at the moment. I'm recovering quite well but I'm not quite there yet.
I'll back into the game asap, but that might not be quite yet.
Thanks for letting me know. Hope you feel better soon.
and before the rope snaps or the wall holding the hook gives out...
Sorry, i had a rough week with family matters but should be able to continue poosting as normal now.
Things took more time than I expected, now slowly picking up again. Step 1, reading through what happened.
Apologies, I thought I had made a post a couple days ago.
No worries. It was just a bit unexpected that everyone went quiet at the same time.
I'll update tomorrow, if Arakar or Eleana want to squeeze in a response.
Decision paralysis. It happens when there is a choice to make that affects the entire group and everyone waits for the next person to make the move.
Quick question, seems like we're waiting on elena atm. Is she still with us? Maybe bot her for this round so we can continue in the meantime?
Nope, you're waiting on me. Things kind of got away from me a bit.
I imagine that Eleana is gone, if they show back up, great, but otherwise we'll just run with 4.
My apologies. I was planning to read up and join back in but never got to it and this game just kind of fell through the cracks for me. I'll get an in game post in today.
You’re all very kind. The creative shinnanegans is why I keep trying to find Gilfroy a game that lasts.
I’m recruiting for a story-intense old-school game here if anybody is interested in adding another game.