Ruins of Azlant

Game Master Shady_Motives

Here is the space for questions, theory crafting and general shenanigans. Post here first to get on the list of players!

Thanks for choosing Teacher Corvoril! I put a lot of thought into how best to take advantage of the high ability scores. The Champion of Irori seemed like the most MAD class out there. Looking forward to playing with you all.

I'm off to bed, but here's a few thoughts as far as Corvoril's build goes.

With the Variant Variant Multiclassing, I was going to trade 1st and 3rd level feats for the Cavalier's Order and Challenge class features, both Extraordinary abilities. Whilst looking through Orders, the Order of the Star seemed the most appropriate for a follower of Irori. The Order of the Star advances Channel Energy at 1/2 the clerics normal rate, so I figure I can dip one level of cleric at level 2 to get some extra healing for the party. With the changes to the Heal Skill that should go pretty far.

Since the spellcasting from the single level of Cleric won't ever advance, I'll probably take the Ecclesitheurge archetype and the Strength domain. Not sure about subdomain yet. The archetype can prepare domain spells in normal spell slots so Corvoril could prepare 3x Enlarge Person from the Strength subdomain, which is a flashy spell even if it's not incredibly good.

Hi GM! Thanks for the selection! Very excited to play an AP I never actually touched before! I’ll post in more details about Aleranna later. Cheers

Checking in as backup!

*refreshes private messages to see if they've lost any players yet*

Greetings! Dolgrin Briskalberd at your service!

Thank you for the selection, GM. I'm definitely looking forward to this game!

I'll start looking at everyone else's stats and then figure out whether it may be warranted to shuffle any skills or feats around.

Thank you for the acceptance, DM Skull!

So without knowing the undine wizard's stats, we're already a fairly well-rounded party. The major holes, so far, are healing, intimidate, knowledge (planes), spellcraft, stealth, and use magic device.

I am planning to put some ranks into heal, spellcraft, and UMD in the future, but I could also potentially shuffle something around if we want to start off with them.

I also want to confirm that we're only starting out with the maxed wealth from our background, and nothing from the class. Is that still correct?

Corvoril will have a passable heal, UMD and sense motive. I just don't have enough skill points to level everything at once.

I am more worried about disable device at the moment and trapfinding for our group.

Unfortunately as a Paladin Aleranna also starves on skill points (to be able to properly help with disable device/trapfinding... I didn't even have the points for perception!).

Worse, while I will get Lay on Hands, my archetype changes my spell list to that of the bloodrager, so she won't be really useful with the common divine spells. Ugh I hate that part of the archetype! I hate the hippocampus too, but let's not even get there. It's a thematic archetype at least.

I always thought of her more of a tank than anything else, but I'm willing to start shifting things around if the GM allows and if there's anything I can do to help the group.

I thought about using the alternate class skills rules to get some powerful stuff like favored enemy, sneak attack, rage, challenge, order, damage reduction, panache, etc., but honestly I'd rather not go for the optimization and stay in flavor :) we're already so powerful!

I'll be taking trapfinding, probably instead of aquatic combatant. No need to worry about that.

Don't worry about trapfinding Dolgrin, I am going to cover that because it actually makes sense for my clockwork obsessed wizard. I also have UMD covered.

The gameplay thread is up btw. I've dotted in and deleted my post. Just letting others know. :)

Ah, well if that's the case then I might re-allot a skill point from Disable Device into Spellcraft.

I can move my point from local to planes, but honestly I'd never be great rolling for either, as they aren't class skills :)

Knowledge (Dungeoneering) is useful.

Yeah, I'm keeping Dungeoneering, despite not being a class skill either :) I was mostly referring to exchanging Local for Planes, if we need coverage for it. It's almost tempting to get Bardic Knowledge, to be honest, just to be able to deal with knowledges for the party if it's a need.

Yet, I'm more concerned with healing! Well, and with the hippocampus I will have by level 5, which really god knows why anyone would want it.

As a skill addict myself, it is hard not having a ton of skill points. I do wish Paizo had leaned a little harder into the "scholar" part of the "warrior scholar" thing monks have goin' on. The Champion of Irori gets 1/2 Bardic Knowledge, but that's a long, long ways down the road.

Since we've got the Beauty stat and Corvoril is only a mediocre 10, I can take a point out of Diplo and put one into Know Dungeon. Will have to change a trait to get it as a class skill, but it's not a big deal.

Okay I shifted the half-elf ability bonus from Str to Int and took Scholar of Ruins to get Know Dungeon as a class skill.

My wizard has Azlanti Scholar.

Checking in as a backup.

Actually the whole feat for a class ability is less powerful then I thought. Since I limited it to Ex abilities only that does NOT include abilities like Trapfinding. Trapfinding is an untyped skill.

How does this sound? Ex abilities are 1 feat, Untyped, Su and Sp are 2 feats.

For the most part I think it's reasonable to stick with the builds as we made them initially, as they should more or less reflect our respective backgrounds. Being prepared is good, but I don't figure that Dolgrin would have had much occasion to study aberrations yet. That will come in the future.

I'd like to avoid the metagame if possible and pretend I don't know that we'll eventually be facing deepsea aberrations. There can be some mystery in low-level play when we don't know everything there is to know.

I also just like Grounded more than Ancestral Grounds, but I could rock those Knowledge checks.

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Color me surprised that Trapfinding is untyped. I swore it was (Ex), but you're right. I suppose the only issue with something costing two feats is that it will take a long time to get such a feature past level one. If there was an intermediate step, that would be one thing. But otherwise, those will only be worth it if we trade out some of our starting feats.

I will start hunting around the PRD for class features I might want to poach, though...

Well if you wanted a class feature that takes more then 1 feat you would just have to sacrifice 1 feat initially and then you wouldn't get your next feat. Say you wanted the paladins divine grace at 3rd level, you would sacrifice both your 3rd and 5th levels feats but get the benefit at 3rd level as soon as you take it.

So this is more like VMC light as you may only want 1 or 2 abilities at full power for a couple of feats instead of investing whole hog with ALL of your standard feats for less powerful class abilities.

Updated house rules, Feats.

So I'm not taking Disable Device or trapfinding. Instead I will fall back to the Sage position with Bardic Knowledge.

So I could use Level 1 feat and future level 3 feat to pick up Channel Energy?
That would probably be preferable to dipping a level of Cleric.

I actually agree with Dolgrin that maybe it's not really a good idea this "feat for class feature" thing. Even across the Ex features, they're not really balanced - the classes aren't balanced feature by feature, by actually as a whole. With that said, I'd like to bring out some options...

1 - Let's simply not go with this "feat for feature" system at all. Let's work within our classes and limitations! We're already powerful enough with all the boosted attributes and extras the GM gave... Plus people can use the balanced-by-Paizo VMC system if they want to. Of course, the GM is free to do whatever he wants with their NPCs. I'm referring to the PCs!

2 - Let's embrace the multiclass thing beyond, and simply convert into a gestalt game. It's an already used system, and likely the more balanced. With a small party it can work well, especially if the GM boost the enemies accordingly. In this case, I'd recommend even removing the extra feats.

3 - Adopt the "custom class" system thing. I don't have the link but I'm sure other people in the forums will have - I saw that used before in my in-person game. It's a system that associates points to class features and other things to allow people to customize classes of their own.

I prefer any of the three options above, if you'd allow me to be so bold to say so. They will end up being more balanced and fun to everybody, hopefully preventing power creep of one PC or another, and at least they help us keep on the theme/concept we originally went for.

If the wizard isn't taking trapfinding, then I suppose the alchemist will! His bombs are going to be more secondary anyway, so...I'll trade out aquatic combatant and precise shot for trapfinding. Any objections?

TBH I'm content with whatever. Champion of Irori basically is "Monk/Paladin Gestalt: the Official Paizo Class" so I can really tack anything onto Corvoril and keep the original vision I had for him.

Except like, necromancy magic or anti-paladin. Anything reasonable.

Hi mates,

Posting it on all my games - unfortunately I will have to take a hiatus due to some complications at work. I'll be extra busy for the next 6 to 8 weeks, and instead of limiting myself to a single post or two per week, I will instead just fully take a break from the forums and some other activities.

My profound apologies to GMs and my fellow players, as well as the players from the games I host. This came today a little out of nowhere (talk about mondays) as a push for the last quarter of the year. Please, feel free to bot my characters, replace if I can be waited, whatever you see fit. I hope we get the chance to play again in the future no matter what!

Always wishing you have the most fun,

Lapyd

I think this game is officially dead, then. Crisischild hasn't posted on this thread or in the Discord for over a month, nor responded to messages. SmooshieBanana stepped away because of a lack of activity, and now Lapyd is gone for at least the next 6 weeks.

@GM: Can you mark this campaign as inactive when you get a chance? I'm going to hide it from my campaign list by the end of the week.