First, thanks for GMing this and picking us! Looks fun
Second, no worries about a slow pace. RL comes first and you forewarned us :)
Third.. I really don't use VTT's much myself but will try whatever works for you and others.
Fourth, haven't heard of that podcast :)
As for questions... I don't think I named Grobradon's parents, but as they are locals, do you want to do that or should I?
Howdy all! Thanks for choosing Varys, GM.
I will make Varys' alias later today or sometime this weekend when I have a moment.
The posting schedule works for me. I keep strange hours and will probably post as often as others want to have character interactions.
I tend to like Roll20 for VTT, at least better than Google slides. I haven't tried too many other systems, but I'm open. (I have heard good things about Foundry, but it costs money.)
I have listened to the Glass Cannon Podcast, but it sounds like the GM has changed a lot over the years. It's also been so long since the beginning that I think it will be pretty easy for me to avoid metagaming.
It looks like we have an interesting party! A half-orc bard, a human? monk with all of the archetypes crossing into magus, a half-elf swashbuckler progressing as an antiquarian investigator, a halfling oracle, and a human barbarian.
As I finalize things, I wanted to check on some possible options with the fellow players.
A question for the GM:
For those of us who are multiclassing, do you want us to use fractional base bonuses or just add things up exactly as they are on each class chart? That won't matter for a while, but it will make more of a difference at certain levels.
Hello everyone and thanks GM! I'm looking forward to playing with you all!
For VTT: I've used Roll20 and I'm fine with it. I'm not familiar with any others.
@Poly: Clover will have some social skills and do well in them, but not others. Clover just isn't very scary, and she gets uncomfortable and embarrassed when she tries to lie. (Diplomacy is a class skill, but Bluff and Intimidate are not. Given limited skill points, I'm not planning on investing in the ones that aren't in-class.)
I also have a couple of things about Clover's roles in the party and build I'd like to put to the party for thoughts and comments.
Right now Clover is built to do some combat support. Her offensive capabilities are, to be blunt, pathetic. However with a longspear and Perfect Aid from the Succor mystery she can use AoO's for the aid action to increase AC. That's what she'll be doing, essentially her whole purpose for using a weapon. She might also actually score a successful attack every now and then.
This works really well normally, but with giants I'm not sure how well this setup would mature into higher levels. If the melee portion of the party thinks they can do fine without that kind of help, it might be better to keep Clover out of combat and go all in as a caster. The generous point buy is allowing Clover to start with an 18 charisma so she doesn't have to be confined to buffing and such; she can go on the offensive if I invest feats, etc, in that direction instead of combat stuff.
There's also healing. It looks like Clover will doing most all of it. I almost went with the Life mystery since I imagine giants hit really hard. But it also tends to be very passive. It doesn't make anyone else's job easier, it just throws gobs of hit points on you as you do the work.
Succor splits some differences. It gets a couple of the Life Revelations, a bit of debuffing, and some melee support.
To keep this reasonably short, I'm going to lay out three directions for Clover, and if you find one of them sounds best now that we know who's in the party, let me know. If the GM will allow some changes, I'm happy to do a bit of rebuilding. Oracles are tough in PbP because they're narrow and it's hard to predict how a given build will mesh with the selected party. I almost went with each of these possibilities before finally having to decide something.
1. (Succor/Present): Good Healing / Some Melee Support / Some Debuffing / Good Buffing.
2. (Life): Huge Healing / Good Buffing
3. (Offensive Casting): Excellent Battlefield Control with Shadow or Battle(!) mysteries / Good Debuffing / Good Buffing. OR Excellent Debuffing with Shadow, Time, or Heavens mysteries / Some Buffing / Some Battlefield Control. Either option has average healing for an oracle.
Ooh, a quick request? If you post in the Gameplay thread, then we can dot and delete our initial posts so that the game shows up in our respective Campaign tabs. (I won't post there until my alias is ready.)
Social Skills: I was looking at the highest of the three big stats for everyone: +8 Bluff from Grobradon, +8 Diplomacy from Clover and Grobradon, and +8 Intimidate from Thorfinn. If I stick with Linguistics, then at Level 3 I'll have a +12 to Linguistics, which I'll be able to use lie, change attitudes, or coerce, but critically not to feint, gather information, or demoralize. It's very useful, and would fit the character well, but not the be-all/end-all.
@Clover: You may have seen this already, but there are so many great ways to boost Aid Another even beyond Helpful (which is great to start). It's also missing one of my favorite combinations: Magic Trick: Mage Hand (Ranged Aid). If you can figure out some way to get mage hand on your list of spells known, then you can keep your distance and provide ridiculous boosts to attack and AC.
Healing: I imagine that the oracle will be doing the bulk of the healing, but our bard will have some, and Varys will manage decently once he gets spells. The nice thing about the antiquarian archetype is no need for the Infusion discovery to cast spells on other people. (The bad thing is no mutagen.)
Overall, I like what you have going with Succor. Life is powerful, but it's hard to play a passive class. I imagine that battlefield control will be incredibly useful, but if the front line is doing its job then we'll be able to lock enemies down so that they don't get around to the squishies in the back.
Camris here, thanks for the selection!
-Your characters will all start out in the town of Trunau.
Do we need to know anything about it beforehand?
-I am only requiring 2 posts per week from my players, though more will not be frowned upon if you wish to do so. I work very long hours and do not have time to be on the boards constantly responding to posts(hence selections being late) and I don't think it would be fair to hold my players to different standards.
Understood. I tend to be similar.
-I have been thinking about using a VTT for combat as I find play-by-post combat, especially with my limited posting schedule, to be really clunky. What are your thoughts on the matter and if we do go in that direction do you have a VTT you prefer?
I've had great success with Roll20, just for the maps and tokens alone!
-If you are a fan of the glass cannon podcast and have listened to their flagship show please avoid metagaming and if you have not I suggest you do not start listening to their original podcast(called the glass cannon podcast) since it will horrendously spoil things for you!
Haven't heard of it.
Hey! Grobradon can be my wrestling manager!
Introductions, bets, arranging matches...
Clover! Get yourself a lance and ride on my shoulders! It'll be great!
I would actually advise anyone who has NOT listened to Glass Cannon's flagship to NOT listen to it. It is an in-depth telling of the story we are about to run, and if you want to avoid spoilers and have all the fun surprises, this will remove that for you.
Once we FINISH the story, then I would 100% advise listening to it. It is the singular best Actual Play podcast out there.
Asher (and all of his archetypes...I notoriously love them, just to get something different than what everyone else plays) is a single weapon, unarmored melee type. He can use unarmed strikes and his Katana.
BTW PathfinderPlayer35, we should sort out how he gets his katana. This will become his black blade. Does he start with it?
He should still have a high AC, as I tend to fight defensively and use Combat Expertise. PathfinderPlayer35, are we using the Elephant in the room Feat taxes rules? They're generally accepted to remove some of the most boring Feat taxes in Pathfinder.
I move through combat actually trying to provoke NPCs to attack me...banking that they'll miss, and that provokes Retaliatory strikes for me. So I tend to be pretty mobile. Any buffs to help me hit and do damage will go a long way.
For VTT's, I have used Roll20 to a lot of "meh" (It never clicked with me). My roommate and I have used Foundry and enjoyed that. The hard part will be leaving it up and hosted so anyone can access it whenever. Because of that, I am up for any solution, including Roll20.
I'll get my character up today. He'll likely be a local who traveled abroad and has come home. I find it easier (ESPECIALLY in a slower PBP) to just have the characters established as friends, so we skip the 100 posts that take 6 weeks of "who are you and why should I care" BS. Lol.
@Poly, I plan to buff up face skills but I've seen too many games where 'aid another' in diplomacy or bluff saved the day for me to discourage anyone from doing the same .:) The Giants may crush us, but they'll also remember us fondly going "You know, those guys weren't so bad. I liked em" "Yeah me too" :) Honestly I don't see Grobradon going for intimidate unless it's indirectly "Thorfinn, rip his arms off". Have fun with your orator ambitions says I
I'm very glad you're hoping to handle traps
@Clover, one reason I picked Cure LIght wounds for Grobadon was as a back up healer. I think his future spells may focus on mind effecting stuff (Giants have minds right?) together we should be able to keep folks alive I think. Succor seems to have a big pay off in battle but I'm not as tactically minded as some players though.
@Thorfinn, RE: Introductions? Ever see the 2001 movie "A knight's Tale" ? Grobradon isn't as sly as Chaucer, but I bet he could belt out a good introduction for Thorfinn if asked :)
Hey Poly, the Mage Hand Magic Trick thing is very neat. I'd not seen it before. I think it would be very hard to make it work in this case though.
Succor's Perfect Aid gives the Bodyguard feat without the Combat Expertise prereq, and a scaling bonus so that by 14th level Clover can use an AoO to add +9 AC versus an attack. However Bodyguard requires she be adjacent to the person aided. With Combat Reflexes she can add + Dex Bonus per round to the number of times she does it.
The problem I see is that with the reach giants have she'll have to be in the threatened zone even with a longspear, which gets her squashed like a bug sooner or later.
Magic Trick is more an alternative route. In that case Clover doesn't need the Succor Mystery at all. In this case she can use ranged touch, but she still needs to get Mage Hand. This can be done by taking the Extra Traits feat and selecting Magical Talent, However she'd be subject to spell failure in armor. To avoid that she'd need to dip a level in Bard and I'm loath to do that. Then she would need the Combat Expertise and Swift Aid feats to avoid using all her standard actions. That's a total of 4 feats for a class that gets no bonus feats. Minimal level for it to work is 6th, when Swift Aid can be taken.
It sounds super interesting for a Bard or Scald (especially Skald) but too expensive in my case.
So the core question (leaving aside survivability), is whether a +9 to AC is worth all this trouble against giants when she could instead devote the resources into things like metamagic and spell penetration to shut them down with spells instead?
Hey! Grobradon can be my wrestling manager!
Introductions, bets, arranging matches...Clover! Get yourself a lance and ride on my shoulders! It'll be great!
Only if you're trained as a mount Thorfinn! Clover will not be your squishy meat helmet!
Aaaaand here he is. I'm glad we're all here!
@Asher, I took a peak at your archetypes and blinked several times. They replace almost the entirety of the base monk class! That's wild! I have no idea how it will play, but I'm looking forward to it!
Good to know all around re: the social skills. I've always rather liked having multiple social characters instead of leaving all of the social interaction to the one character with the right skills. Still, having more people who can contribute the skills is always nice, even if this doesn't seem like War for the Crown, where it's a requirement.
A Knight's Tale is one of my favorite campy movies of all time and I need to rewatch it. Making Chaucer 1) Paul Bettany, and 2) a hype-man was one of the greatest triumphs of modern cinema.
I wouldn't mind the Elephant in the Room Feat Taxes. If we implement them, I would probably drop my Strength back down to 12 (since Power Attack would be an auto-option), and boost Wisdom up to 12. Heck, I might pick up Precise Shot at some point since that would be a one-feat investment instead of two, get a little switch-hitting action going. It's also nice to have more combat maneuvers opened up more easily via Deft/Powerful Maneuvers instead of sinking everything into one combat trick. Since EitR might replace/alter some of my class features, I'd want to be very clear about what gets changed and how (since swashbuckler has not been formally included in any of the EitR versions). But I know, from having GM'd with EitR, that it can be a headache to convert (if you want to). So I won't push it.
Re: knowing each other, I do still see Varys having recently arrived in Trunau, so he's not likely to know any of you yet. But I enjoy some of the getting-to-know-you, if it can be done artfully.
Rule of Cool: Thorfinn becomes Clover's mount following her pseudo-dip in Cavalier. And it sounds like metamagic and shutdown potential could be a lot of eventual fun!
@Grobadon: Sounds good. Clover will not be taking the Life mystery then. Besides if we're really in a meat grinder type of bind Clover can grab the Shaman's Life Spirit via Spirit Guide getting Life Link at 3rd and Channel at 7th levels to become a mini-life oracle.
She'll be taking the Flexible Hex feat so at 5th level or so she can change her daily bonded spirit as a swift action.
Thorfinn, you're in Aloha? I'm in Portland. <waves>
That makes it slightly more likely Clover will trust you as a mount.
I use HeroLab with EitR built-in, so conversion is 100% simple on my end.
Varys is from Kaer Maga? Asher likely would have traveled through there at one point, so they could have met (makes it a re-introduction, rather than introduction, I suppose). In the past, I've always liked moments at the table like that, where one player references something that the other player has to bounce off of. (Varys: "Asher! Good to see you! Gods, the last time I saw you you were on the back of that donkey, riding south to marry...what was her name?" Asher: "His name was Keltan. Worst night of drinking in my life. After I escaped his...affections...I traveled north and ended up here. What brings you here?") Something like that, where the characters reference some innocuous bit of information that causes the other character to have to adapt and ends up with silly stories from it, plus implied relationships between the characters. I enjoy that stuff, lol.
But either way, I'm good.
Thorfinn, I pictured Asher as having studied under some master from Minkai in the northern provinces, sort of a kensai Viking. Perhaps we traveled from there to Trunau together, and have known each other a bit? He's very Doc Holiday but styles himself in the dress and styles of the Ulfen. What do you think?
Well, Clover works at the Ramblehouse, which is pretty much the only place to stay if you're not a long-term resident. So, tip well all of you. Remember Clover's a jinx so it's better if she thinks kind thoughts when you come to mind.
Asher: I pictured Thorfinn as a travelling challenge wrestler that just blew in off the last stagecoach. Makes sense they would have traveled together for some time. Both in the martial business, they would have talked shop as well.
I like it. Asher isn't really into the sport of fighting. For him it's more...art, I think. So he's the perfect traveling companion.
Grobradon is a local boy, and surely would would know Clover and vice versa. It's possible he tries to entertain folks at the Inn, though his parents consider this a waste when he could get a more useful job ;) He has also patrolled, of course, but it's not where his heart is.
@Grobradon: If you're looking for a local connection, maybe it would work to be one of Halgra's kids? She's noted as having 2 half-orc children.
@mittean: That does sound fun, and I'm a big fan of yes-and, but I'm a tad leery about being overly specific with that kind of big backstory insertion. I'm willing to give it a shot, though! Since we have three Trunau locals, there are already a bevy of potential connections. I don't think that we need to have everyone already have an established backstory with each other. Unless Clover, Grobradon, and Thorfinn had a reason to travel to Kaer Maga, then Varys will be meeting all three of them for the first time. Of the three, it sounds like Thorfinn is the most likely other previous connection.
Overall, I think it probably makes the most sense for Asher, Thorfinn, and Varys to have traveled to Trunau together in the latest caravan, probably with Varys as a later addition depending on where they were both coming from. Kaer Maga is about 215 miles (~350 km) due west of Trunau as the crow flies, so that's at least two weeks of wagon travel per the rules for overland movement. Whether they knew each other before, they would have had at least two weeks to get to know each other a bit on the journey.
From the Kaer Maga sourcebook City of Strangers, a possible draw for both Asher and Thorfinn to come to Kaer Maga could be The Price of Freedom in the Bottoms: a fighting academy let by Black Marin, a former Chelish military commander stripped of his rank and sold into slavery after disobeying his orders and abandoning a poorly constructed battle plan in order to save the soldiers in his unit. The Bloodbrothers alehouse in the Hospice district could be another draw, with a reputation for only being for true warriors who frequently mix it up in barroom dust-ups. Varys would have little reason to go to either place--too far from the Tarheel Promenade for his tastes--but a strange chance meeting prior to setting out on the caravan wouldn't be out of the question.
Of note for @Clover: Kaer Maga has a sizeable halfling population. I know her parents were from Molthune, but she could have relatives in Kaer Maga as well.
Lol, I am as well, Varys. I used that as a (poor) example.
Alright, I will build Asher without a katana currently, and with EitR Feats. Thank you.
Summing up the character and game rules for ease of reference for myself:
Attributes 25-point buy.
Races/Ancestries Pathfinder 1st edition races.
Classes No 3PP. Summoners and Rogues must be unchained. No occult classes.
Starting Level 1st.
Hit Points Max at every level, you will be fighting giants after all and will need the extra hitpoints.
Wealth Max for your class
Skills I do not use the Background Skills variant rule from Unchained.
Traits Two traits, one of which must be a campaign trait that can be found in the player's guide or online here. Drawbacks are fine (implied up to two Drawbacks for up to two Traits)
Guns Emerging.
Questions:
- Do you allow Flaws for Feats?
- I'm assuming you are not using Wound Points, correct?
- Are Traits unrestricted, or are they still limited by race requirements?
Alright, I think I have most of the character done.
Re: Elephant in the Room: cool!
In that case, I want to ask for clarifications on two things that this changes for Varys. I'm putting my long, hopefully transparent explanations in spoilers, with a brief summary at the end.
At 1st level, an inspired blade gains the benefits of Weapon Finesse with the rapier (this ability counts as having the Weapon Finesse feat for the purpose of meeting feat prerequisites) and gains Weapon Focus (rapier) as a bonus feat. This ability replaces swashbuckler finesse.
This references both Weapon Finesse and Weapon Focus, which are altered by Elephant in the Room, as follows:
The Weapon Finesse feat has been removed, and now any character may choose to use their dexterity bonus to hit with light melee weapons. As a consequence, the Light Melee Weapons designation has been renamed to Finesse Melee Weapons. A new special weapon feature called agile has been added for melee weapons that are one-handed or two-handed but can still be finessed, such as the rapier.
Choose one weapon group listed under the fighter’s Weapon Training class feature.
Prerequisites: Proficiency with at least one weapon from the selected weapon group, base attack bonus +1.
Benefit: You gain a +1 bonus on all attack rolls you make using any weapon from the selected group.
Special: You can gain this feat multiple times. Its effects do not stack. Each time you take the feat, it applies to a new weapon group.
I'll address Weapon Finesse first.
The juiciness of the inspired blade archetype, beyond getting both Int and Cha to panache, is that double whammy of both weapon finesse and weapon focus, allowing a non-human non-fighter to get dex to damage at level 1, theoretically in exchange for locking you in to fighting with a rapier.
But now Weapon Finesse is just an option with light/finesse and agile weapons, and Weapon Focus applies to entire group. Losing a class feature isn't great. So I have some potential solutions, based on what the Elephant in the Room authors write about in the document.
1) For unchained Rogues with a similar class feature (Finesse training), the EitR authors have the rogue gain Deft Maneuvers as a bonus feat instead of Weapon Finesse.
2) Alternatively, they recommend in their Bestiary Feat Swapping table to change Weapon Finesse to Agile Combatant, an update to Agile Maneuvers that has PCs adding their Dex bonus to their CMB instead of their Str bonus for all combat maneuvers instead just for disarm, sunder, or trip maneuvers. A bit weak, but not the worst thing if you plan to do bull rushes, grapples, and overruns as a Dex-based fighter.
3) Oddly, their recommended swap for Deft Maneuvers is Combat Expertise. I don't follow the logic of this swap, as trading your attack bonus for AC and being able to perform combat maneuvers without provoking are pretty mechanically far from each other.
Could I petition for the Swashbuckler to get the same deal as the unchained rogue, and get deft maneuvers instead of weapon finesse?
The Grace feats (Fencing, Slashing, Starry, Bladed Brush, Dervish Dance) all require:
(And Dervish Dance also requires 2 ranks in Perform (dance))
Almost all non-ranged Fighter Weapon Groups can be represented by at least one member for the purposes of being an eligible choice for one of the grace feats (and therefore dex-to-damage). But the largest by far, and the one that the rapier belongs to, is Light Blades.
So it makes sense that the Inspired Finesse feature could be rewritten to encompass Weapon Focus (light blades) instead of Weapon Focus (rapier), and allow these class features to be used with other light blades. That's my first request: Weapon Focus (light blades).
The Slashing Grace feat is the least restrictive of the RAW grace feats, allowing any light- or one-handed slashing weapon to use Dex to damage. The swashbuckler's class feature then allows them to make any of those weapons, regardless of whether or not they can be finessed natively, into finesse weapons in the swashbuckler's hands. By comparison, the other grace feats can only possibly apply to a single weapon. If one of the goals of the EitR feat tax house rules is to open up what PCs can do instead of restricting them to a single weapon for their adventuring career, then could the respective grace feats apply to weapon groups and/or damage types as well?
While I intend to stick with a rapier, if the party finds a really cool weapon that could otherwise fit the intended features of a light- or one-handed piercing light blade, it would be neat to be able to use other feats and class features with it instead of just throwing it into the "let's sell this when we get back to town" bag.
In another game that I am in, which is not using the full Elephant in the Room alternate ruleset, the GM replaced fencing grace, slashing grace, starry grace, dervish dance, etc. with the following:
You have been trained to nimbly strike at vulnerable areas rather than relying on brute force.
Prerequisites: Dexterity 13, BAB +1
Benefit: When attacking with a single light or finesse weapon you may add your Dex bonus instead of your Str bonus to the damage dealt. If your Str is below 10 you can only use this feat with light weapons as one-handed and two-handed weapons are too heavy for you to wield so gracefully. This technique requires focus and cannot be used when raging, or when attacking with a second weapon or using similar abilities (such as flurry of blows or spell combat).
They removed Weapon Focus as a prerequisite at all, and also don't restrict it to a particular damage type. So basically, any character meeting the baseline prerequisites could take it as early as first level without messing with the gymnastics of finding a way to fit in both Weapon Finesse and Weapon Focus.
Would you be interested in adopting Graceful Strike as a feat to add to the published Elephant in the Room feat tax ruleset? Or would you be willing to expand the existing Grace feats to account for Fighter Weapon Groups (similar to how Weapon Focus has been expanded)?
Summary: Elephant in the Room interacts strangely with the Inspired Blade archetype of the Swashbuckler. Since Weapon Finesse is removed, I petition that the Swashbuckler receives Deft Maneuvers in the same way that the Unchained Rogue does in the Elephant in the Room feat tax document. Since Weapon Focus now applies to Fighter Weapon Groups, I propose that the Inspired Blade free Weapon Focus applies to a Weapon Group (light blades if we want to stick with the theme), and that a subsequent dex-to-damage Grace feat would similarly apply to weapons from that weapon group. Alternatively, I presented another GM's substitute feat, Graceful Strike.
I don't plan for this to change much in my build. It's just clarification on how different features act together and whether I have any dead class features.
@Grobradon: If you're looking for a local connection, maybe it would work to be one of Halgra's kids? She's noted as having 2 half-orc children.
In Grobradon's backstory his two half orc parents are happily married so I'll work on something since I've got our GM's go ahead to . Thanks though :)
Ah shoot, I may have misunderstood. I thought the three of us arrived together, a bit before the Hopeknife Ceremony.
It's fine! We're looking for you. We'd mentioned meeting you here last we saw you, perhaps?
Ninja'd. Shoot again.
I am not a professional lyricist so.. use your imaginations to make that slapdash stuff palatable, please. I just thought it was a good chance for Grobradon to play "Musical Exposition Guy" for visitors :)
Good to know, and thanks! You previously mentioned only expecting so many posts per week, so knowing to expect more movement on the weekends is helpful. I don't think anything has been dire yet, just seeking clarifications to finish builds.
I'm happy to keep playing RP volleyball with the other players.
I changed out my ax to grind Trait for Vexing defender Trait since Traits are restricted (only one combat Trait allowed).
I have also added the Flaws Shakey and Meager Fortitude. For those, I added Snapping Turtle Style and Combat Reflexes.
Strength +1
Initiative +4
Strength +0
Initiative +3
Strength +2
Initiative +1
Theatre of the mind seems fine for a tug o war :)
Agreed with theatre of the mind!
To collate everything from each PC's profile (unless I missed something):
So we have an initiative of +4 and a total team Strength score of +7. I suspect Thorfinn could potentially rage to boost that, and I don't know what else other folks might have that could give edges, but that's about how we're doing!
So I would roll Initiative I guess? We could alternate who makes the strength roll. Since we don't officially have everyone chimed in yet, I'll hold off.
Yep, +1 initiative and +4 strength bonus. No ability to rage bonus that.
Theater of the mind. And Varys has mine correct.
I'm heading out of town for four or five days to a regional burning man. Go ahead and bot me for the tug of war!
Did you want us to wait to roll the Strength check until we know the results of the other team's initiative? I'd like to keep us moving, but this is pretty back-and-forth. Does it matter who makes the Strength roll?
I have returned.