Way of the Wicked group 3

Game Master Diamondust

Ok, dot in please. Remind me your classes and template in case I haven't scaled it for you yet.

You were level 2 when you were captured. Level 3 after escaping the prison. Level 4 after completing Cardinal Thorn's test. This is where we start. After I make the first gameplay post characters can introduce themselves and we'll get started.

Here I am, lets give the sunsuckers a good taste of their own "burn everything" medicine yes?

Aenil is a Crimson Dancer and Harbinger with the Crimson Countess archetype and the Inveigler template.

Question, would it be possible for her to also take the vampire feats from the AP? Idk if she would or not, but I figured I would ask, just in case.

Ardran is an Mixed (Infernal and Abyssal) Urban Bloodrager (stacking 2 compatible archetypes) on one side of his Gestalt, a spell warrior (Skald Archetype) on the other, and recently found out he is part Balor, by sacrificing a Mithran priest and having his legacy get fully reignited.

He will keep progressing along these 2 archetypes.

Mechanical TLDR concernign the archetypes:

--Urban Bloodragers can keep performing while raging, in contrast to most others. It also fits his more suave then Barbaric personality.
--I picked mixed blood (accepting the -2 will save malus) to have a defined and relevant weakness, and also to be able of changing out Abyssal Bloodline parts that are redundant with being a Half Balor, particularly the elemental resistances he would get at level 8.

--Spell warrior does not mess with allied spell casting, making it the most party friendly skald type, especially in a party where everyone can cast some spells. It does give up spell kenning sadly, making him less flexibile then he would normally be.

Having played up to that point a couple of times, his relationships to various NPCs:

All of them obviously GM approval

--Probably has a degree of competition with Wulfstan, as the 2 resident Strongmen. Would pride himself on being a lot more intelligent and knowledgeable then Wulfstan is.

--Would get along with Trick, often playing the "liars game" with him, which is kind of "true or false" but with booze and darker.

--Would flirt with Elize to piss off Wulfstan.

--Has a competition with Trick to ship Track with another partymember. Neither of them make much progress.

--He would be pretty deferential, polite and even courting to Thiadora, anything less gets him thrown through a wall or worse.

--was interviewed by Thiadora as she wanted to brush up her spoken Abyssal. She offered to "instruct" him in infernal, an offer he foolishly accepted. He subsequently got thrown at a wall, everytime he mistook the infernal 3th person accusativ-superior with the 3rd person accusative-differential. He did pick up infernal really quickly though.

Traits: I kind of want to keep my will saves as a weakness, partly because Ardran feels very powerful to me, as such I am looking at stealth as a class skill or +2 initiaive traits.

Teamwork feats:
--Bonded Mind, escape route, precise strike, Stealth synergy, outflank all sound pretty good. Note, bonded mind and stealh synergy are easy to use in a play by post, escape route is not a feat I would recommend in play by post, as tese are typically group initiative.

I am here! :) As you can see above, in my header, I'm a Legendary Wizard/Taskshaper. I will possibly be going into Evangelist, either to Asmodeus or Calistria. I will be picking the Lustful creature template (hopefully with some minor tweaks).

Isabella is a vitalist 3/symbiat (gravecrawler) 1//soul weaver (dual channeler) 4

Her template will be Haunted construct. still waiting for this.

For teamwork feats, Stealth synergy can be wonderful. Especially when you have a mix of sneaky and not-sneaky people. By far my favorite for a mixed group.

Escape route can help us maneuver. People usually in combat have more options, people usually out of combat find it easier to get out.

Lookout is perhaps less useful as we should be the ones performing the ambushes.

I'll be giving people telepathy, so bonded mind would be less useful.

If I go for the stealth trait, mine is going to be a 4(ranks)+3(dex)+2(traits)+3(class skill)for a +12, factoring in ACP a +9.

Of course, if we go stealth synergy I can use the 4 skill points elsewhere, like kn. skills, and it basically gives me +2 init as well which is great. Stealth Synergy is thus my favorite.

The problems with escape route in Play by post are this: It requires to not be using group initiative, because it gets annoying to arbitrate if people move at the same time, which they are likely to do.
The "But I had an escape route open the last time I checked the map" "Oh, I already moved my token to flank that guy", its a really good teamwork feat otherwise.

Skill wise, Ardrans gets 9 skill points (4 base, 2 int, 1 human 2 to background skills) to distribute per level, which is a lot of skill point budget.
Currently, he wants full ranks in Kn. Planes, Spellcraft, Perform Sing, Perception and acrobatics (accounting for 5 of his 9 skill points per level), leaving 16 skillpoints to play with, mostly using them to get 1 skill point into everything that is a class skill for him.

If I go for the stealth trait, mine is going to be a 4(ranks)+3(dex)+2(traits)+3(class skill)for a +12, factoring in ACP a +9.

Of course, if we go stealth synergy I can use the 4 skill points elsewhere, like kn. skills, and it basically gives me +2 init as well which is great. Stealth Synergy is thus my favorite.

I wouldn't take all four points away. SSynergy only affects the die. If you lose all points, it's still going affect your maximum. Especially as we go up.

The problems with escape route in Play by post are this: It requires to not be using group initiative, because it gets annoying to arbitrate if people move at the same time, which they are likely to do.
The "But I had an escape route open the last time I checked the map" "Oh, I already moved my token to flank that guy", its a really good teamwork feat otherwise.

Good point. It does make it harder to use.

Skill wise, Ardrans gets 9 skill points (4 base, 2 int, 1 human 2 to background skills) to distribute per level, which is a lot of skill point budget.
Currently, he wants full ranks in Kn. Planes, Spellcraft, Perform Sing, Perception and acrobatics (accounting for 5 of his 9 skill points per level), leaving 16 skillpoints to play with, mostly using them to get 1 skill point into everything that is a class skill for him.

Awesome! It's always good to have a lot of skills covered. Plus we can perform duets!

Bonded mind or Stealth Synergy work for me.

Ardran has "summon instrument" and "play instrument" as a spell which gives him full ranks in any instrument (for currently 40 minutes, its a relatively plentifull level 1 spell though).
Thiadora challenged him to play the fiendishly difficult 4th Sonata of Belial, "the charge of the Erinyes", on a violine, and he did, quite well even.

Hi, I’m a simple LE Gestalt Cleric & Oracle 4 devoted to Hell | Outsider (Native), Aasimar Halfling, Succubus Template

Will post in gameplay tomorrow.

Today was a rest day for me, as I spent most it just chilling and relaxing. I didn't realize gameplay was open, but I'll post there tomorrow. Off to bed, as it's almost 6am for me.

Precise Strike would be good for Aenil, since that means she can Improve Precise Strike, and deal even more bleed!

However, Bonded Mind is also neat.

I would propose the following teamwork feat:

Stealth Synergy (Teamwork)
Working closely with an ally, you are able to move like twin shadows.

Benefit: While you can see one or more allies who also have this feat, whenever you and your allies make a Stealth check, you all take the highest roll and add all your modifiers to Stealth.

Stealth synergy in party of 5 means that we can reasonably expect the stealth roll itself to do 15 or higher (83% chance). This overestimates its effect a bit, as it will not always be the case that all of use roll a stealth die, but this compares will with the odds of noone rolling a 1 without stealth synergy.

Seems it is somewhat equivalent of a +14ish stealth bonus.

You each gain a training trait and a teamwork feat which you can coordinate in choosing.

Does this mean that we all must pick the same teamwork feat? Or could, for example, I and another take Bonded Mind or Precise Strike, and some others could take Stealth Synergy?

My unerstanding is we all take the same teamwork feat.

We do have a telepathy provider in the party, so bonded mind imho loses some degree of greatness.

We pretty much have 2 frontliners, me and Aenil, and while precise strike is nice to have (if I make use of my natural attacks, its potentially +4d6 damage per turn), 3 party members would only gain limited benefits from it.

You only really get the benefit with others that have the teamwork feat so it only make sense if at least 2 but ideally all of us take the same feat.

Ardran, your ooc brackets are broken on your header, likely before raging song.

Can Aneil benefit from others giving bleed damage? One of my abilities does this while also setting them up for reanimation once they die. If she benefits from targets already bleeding from other sources that's great.

I'm also willing to swap this out to another one if you want to be the person focusing on blood.

For my doll body I was thinking that it would be wood with a ceramic head. The body would be like an artist's model, though proportioned like a child. Since I want it to be well made, would 500gp be appropriate?

Can Aneil benefit from others giving bleed damage? One of my abilities does this while also setting them up for reanimation once they die. If she benefits from targets already bleeding from other sources that's great.

I'm also willing to swap this out to another one if you want to be the person focusing on blood.

I'm fairly certain she has(or will have) abilities that allow her to benefit from bleed in general, regardless of source.

Also, since she's a Harbinger has well, I've given her some a few abilities to curse her enemies. By itself, it doesn't do much, but it does empower other stuff. Idk if the other PCs can benefit from the cursed status or not, but wanted to let ya'll know she can apply it.

I think that a regular masterwork item (not weapon or armour or tool) adds 100gp to the normal price. So unless there are special materials I don't think it should be too expensive.

You also don't have to all have the same teamwork feat if it won't be beneficial for everyone. Or 1 feat is good for half the party and a different is better for others. I leave it to you all to decide together.

So frontliners, do you want to take precise strike and we can take stealth synergy? Is that agreeable to everyone?

Stealth synergy giving use the ability to get surprise rounds is probably stronger. It also isnt neccessary the case that we are flanking.

I just think that we have so much martial power that this little damage from precise strike won’t really matter much.

But one bad roll on a stealth check can ruin a whole covert mission and I hope that we can overcome some challenges without fighting. :-)

Is anyone opposed to taking SSynergy? I'm not.

I just think that we have so much martial power that this little damage from precise strike won’t really matter much.

But one bad roll on a stealth check can ruin a whole covert mission and I hope that we can overcome some challenges without fighting. :-)

This, I hit harder then a freight truck, without precise strike.

<Looks at her stealth of +10. Sighs> Fine! I guess! I just wanted to make people bleed more... <pouts>

Any word on my template adjustments?

It's coming. I will finish it after work today. It is a light template overall so though the template says you have 1 haunt, I thought perhaps you could gain other haunt options as you level. So if something is resistant to fire then the burned alive haunt is useless and you could swap to a different haunt that they aren't resistant to. It can be explained by the souls you use from your classes being the ones powering the haunts?

It's coming. I will finish it after work today. It is a light template overall so though the template says you have 1 haunt, I thought perhaps you could gain other haunt options as you level. So if something is resistant to fire then the burned alive haunt is useless and you could swap to a different haunt that they aren't resistant to. It can be explained by the souls you use from your classes being the ones powering the haunts?

That would be cool.

@Ardran: No, she cannot turn off her lust zone, and wouldn't wish to anyway (lol). There is no immunizing to it like you are playing at either. Every time you enter the aura, you make a save. Sometimes he'll not notice its effects and sometimes he will, but that also doesn't mean it's like a barrier that you can detect either (unless using some detection ability). It just adds to the lust he already has.

I'd prefer we not think of it as a wall you smack into and then you know you are having "odd" thoughts, counter to your character. They are your character's thoughts--whatever it is they would lust for (even to a small degree). She just amplifies it enough to be distracting when you come close. Opal is -very- appealing. I hope I've conveyed that well enough.

I see the aura as something like this: The closer one gets to her, the more they can truly admire her appeal and figure. In that moment of temporary lust, it brings to mind things that Ardran has lusted for in the past, intends to lust for in the present, or wants to lust for in the future. Now, typically she will inspire some alluring style of lust, but it's not always the case for some characters. In fact, sometimes she will inspire the lust some others have for each other and it has nothing to do with her! My point is, he'd be more likely to blame himself than her, I'd think. Maybe instead of focusing on the pure lust of it, maybe Ardran wishes for friendship/companionship/honor/respect? These are all covered under what is acceptable to lust after under the skill.

I don't want it to be debilitating either. It's mind-affecting, yes, but not mind-controlling. Mechanically, if I had my way, it would have an optional ryder that would state that she can choose not to target certain beings within her range. It's very debilitating to not be able to use a cure wand because you're too busy looking at her chest to want to save a companion. However, even if she did have this option, she would not deactivate it unless needed. She wants your character to lust. That's a huge part of her faith.

Now, when she uses her "Burning Desire" skill on you in combat, filling you with utter lust and desire to the point it physically burns you, then yes, that is a very clear indication of her powers over passions.

I understand the concept but it is quite a weakness for the whole group.

It does not state a duration of the effects or that you’re immune for the day once affected by it.

So how do you envision us working together when everyone near you is under the constant threat of being debilitated?

I mean, the ability probably cant be turned off, because it would be far too powerful if it was targetabble, representing the combined effects of a well regarded hex (evil eye vs AC, also note that the penalty to CMB and CMD is effectively -4), a level 3/4 spell (crushing despair) and the negative effects of rage (level 3 spell, it is also a bit similar to infuriating mockery ability of an urban skald), without expending resources.

Its a constant safe or suck, and if you fail you are effected with crushing despair on steroids + negative effects of rage, also on steroids.

Perhaps make it less debilitating but targetablle and scaling with levels?

So how do you envision us working together when everyone near you is under the constant threat of being debilitated?

I didn't pick this template to purposefully debilitate the party, as though I was unaware of what the skill did, so please don't think that if you do. I sorted through dozens of templates and this was what I was left with. It fits thematically. I like the flavor of it for Opal. Does that mean it couldn't use tweaks? Of course. I've already stated that concern to the GM. He may not have known the details, but he's seemed fairly busy lately and we are still in the intro, so I'm not pushing it for completion atm.

Mechanically, I'm sure if he wants to tweak it, he will, particularly since there is a growing concern about it. I handed control of that stuff over to him when he spread out my abilities. I also don't particularly enjoy having Opal be infertile and one of her skills is super fertility. So that's just a waste. Both of these could use tweaks.

That's the mechanical side of things. You are correct. No successful save? Then yes, you are affected. No immunity. And the radius just keeps growing as she goes up in level.

On the flavor side of things, I will want to maintain it and not do away with it at all. I don't see it debilitating to the RP to show your character's passions and lusts with a little distraction--whatever they are--and I hope we can all agree on that. Maybe they are reminded when they look at the serenity of Opal how much they love to garden? I don't know what the party's desires are, but she's going to keep it up until it comes time to hinder the party, then it will of course come down. She may be into darker, kinky things, but that doesn't mean she forcefully inflicts them upon others to their detriment (unless they dang well deserve it lol).

Possible tweaks (in order of my preference)

* Indulging in appropriate activity within the aura eliminates the game penalties for a day. We'd still have the RP effects, but it's less distracting. This will let us deal with it, but will likely require a discussion about our posting limits.

* Ruling that long-term exposure either gives a significant bonus to the save or lets us ignore the penalty.

* Saving eliminates the game penalties for one day, but leaves the RP effects. Sadly, high will Mitrans will become immune during a fight.

-----

The aura is unclear about duration and frequency of the saves. Is it for one round, or as long as you are in the aura? Do you only save once, or save each round until you inevitably fail? (that would be way OP) I'd also explicitly state if it needs LoS, LoE, or both.

Another issue is that you'll need to suppress it for some undercover missions. It's definitely something that would draw attention. Of course when we need a distraction, it's great.

The problem with monster abilities is that they aren't written with PCs in mind. Since there is no duration I assume it is 'while in the area'. I also assume save once each time a creature enters the aura.

I'll think on how it could be best adjusted for a party.

Thank you. I do want it changed.

I would like it if it does remain, and does affect others in a minor playable way. However, in combat, perhaps she surges the ability with strength, making it unbearable, and thus we would have the debilitating effects. I think this also shouldn't affect her (since she isn't immune to mind-affecting at this point), and she should have the option to exclude her allies from the debilitating effects.

This is the most problematic part:

In addition, they cannot cast spells or use any skill, feat, or extraordinary, spell-like, or supernatural ability that uses Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma, or has them as prerequisites, or any abilities that require patience or concentration, nor can he cast spells or activate magic items that require a command word, a spell trigger (such as a wand), or spell completion (such as a scroll) to function.

Is this automatic? Does it only affect us if we fail the concentration check? This would strip(ha!) us of pretty much all of our class features. Heck, we can't even make skill checks in the aura.

I don't mind the distraction/RP aspects, or even the -2 circumstance penalty, but completely losing pretty much everything my character is capable of is not at all acceptable.

Agreed

Ideas:

Lust Phantoms (which actually are PCs, kind of) get this at level 12:

Aura of Ecstasy (Su)

When the spiritualist reaches 12th level, the lust phantom emanates an aura of ecstasy.

All creatures adjacent to the phantom must succeed at a Will save (DC = 10 + 1/2 the phantom’s Hit Dice + the phantom’s Charisma modifier) or be shaken and staggered each round that they remain within the aura of ecstasy. Creatures that succeed at this save are immune to this phantom’s aura of ecstasy for 24 hours.

My idea:

when our Lustfull Opal reaches Xth level, she gains an Aura of exctasy, which she can activate or deactivate as a swift action.

As she progresses in levels, its range increases and it inflicts increasingly harsher penalties. Lets make it modular and have her choose how what her aura inflicts and a days start. She gets a debuff pool, scaling with hit dice, and can fill it with multiple weak debuffs (f.e. Shaken, dazzled, under effects of bane) or fewer strong debuff (staggered).

If she gets sufficiently telekinetic and kinky, add entangled.

We can adventure with her by moving into her range, making or failing the will save, moving out of her range if we failed and rinse and repeat until we are immune for 24 days.

I'm not wanting to completely change the ability, just fix it. Something like the below.

Aura of Lust (Su)
A lusting creature radiates an aura of uncontrolled mental energy of 5′ for every 2 HD it possesses (Maximum 50′ radius). Upon entering the aura, enemy creatures must make a successful Will save (DC 10 +1/2 the lusting creature’s HD + its Cha modifier with a +2 from its language of longing ability, see below) or become distracted by what they lust for (be that sex, power, conquest, honor, friendship, respect, knowledge, etc.). For as long as they are remain in the aura, these creatures suffer a –2 circumstance penalty on AC, attack rolls, CMB, CMD, damage rolls, initiative, saving throws, skill checks, and ability checks. Allies instead gain +1 to those rolls as they are driven to protect the object of their lust (a friend, lover, gold, magical item, esoteric tome, etc.). If they fail the will save, enemy spellcasters must make a concentration check (DC 10 + the lusting creature’s HD + its Cha modifier) or they fail to cast the spell (though they do not lose the spell). In addition, they cannot cast spells or use any skill, feat, or extraordinary, spell-like, or supernatural ability that uses Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma, or has them as prerequisites, or any abilities that require patience or concentration, nor can he cast spells or activate magic items that require a command word, a spell trigger (such as a wand), or spell completion (such as a scroll) to function. This is a mind affecting compulsion effect. This aura can be suppressed for 1 round as a standard action. It will resume on the following round unless another standard action is used.

Hmm...yess....encouraging my party to love my lustful aura. Good! I'll keep it.

It's coming. I will finish it after work today. It is a light template overall so though the template says you have 1 haunt, I thought perhaps you could gain other haunt options as you level. So if something is resistant to fire then the burned alive haunt is useless and you could swap to a different haunt that they aren't resistant to. It can be explained by the souls you use from your classes being the ones powering the haunts?

Other ideas could be to increase some of the bonuses, to be able to add a spell effect to the desecrate or to finish it and allow me to start working on another template.

Wow! GM! You should have become a game developer! I like it! ;-)

Half-Succubus
Inveigler
Lusting Creature
Half-Balor
Haunted Construct

Everyone should have their templates now. I am considering increasing the damage on some of the haunts.

Yeah!
Updating statblock now, will post more tonight.