Mummy's Mask

Game Master Whack-a-Rogue

@Epperson: I'll start your audit a little later today but will do my best to clear up some confusion for you. :-)

A practitioner is simply a character that innately gains combat spheres as they level. A Malefactor falls sort of in-between a practitioner and a nonpractitioner - similarly to how a vanilla Alchemist has magic but isn't actually a spellcaster. This is because it isn't a Spheres of Might class.

In case you were curious, the Malefactor was originally created by TPK Games. I liked the flavor and mechanics, but there were some design flaws. The Malefactor I use is something I created by combining aspects of (I think) three separate classes into a cohesive whole. In short, you won't find much of anything about this Malefactor outside of my website. :-)

Back to your questions. A martial tradition is a themed set of combat talents used to determine your starting proficiencies and fighting style. I think a lot of your confusion is due to the design philosophy of the entire Spheres system. In a lot of ways, it's a "build-a-class" system. Honestly, it has a lot of similarities to PF2e. Classes in PF2e gain feats as they level-up based on their class and race. Here, practitioners gain combat talents as they level-up based on their chosen Spheres.

Therefore, a Sphere is a list of options characters can select by spending combat talents. As a Malefactor, you won't have to focus too much on this after you've finished building your character, as you won't gain any more talents unless you choose to spend feats. I'll be happy to help you pick out a tradition (or make a custom one) that minimizes complexity as much as possible. While you can end up with an extremely-complex combat sequence, it's also possible to choose things that are essentially completely passive - which I'm thinking is the way to go for you. :-)

If you'd like, we can keep chatting about this via PM. I think I told you earlier, but I've played a Malefactor through Level 10, so I've got a very good handle on how it actually plays from a mechanical standpoint. :-)

I went ahead and dotted and deleted, I'll work on a post and background/appearance in the morning...

Ok, Tribim's background, personality and appearance is finished. I may tweak it a little bit, add a little more flavor, but it's close enough to post.

TBD is there any specific 'priestesses of Bastet' he should specifically know? Or, any 'thieves guild' members he may have grown up with that should be familiar to him?

Also, I've assumed he can use 'natural attacks' with the fencing sphere and where it say's weapon, it may include a natural attack. If that's not the case, please let me know now :)

Tribm is the exact opposite of me on the Myers-Briggs scale. ;-) I don't recall there being any named Bastet priestesses in the adventure. As for the 'thieves guild,' you grew up with a half-elf named Black Kiss. She enjoyed catching spiders, scorpions, and other 'creepy-crawlies.'

Natural attacks are light weapons (though they are never expressly defined as such in the rules).

Tribm is the exact opposite of me on the Myers-Briggs scale. ;-) I don't recall there being any named Bastet priestesses in the adventure. As for the 'thieves guild,' you grew up with a half-elf named Black Kiss. She enjoyed catching spiders, scorpions, and other 'creepy-crawlies.'

Pathfinder Design Team (official rules response) wrote:

Natural attacks are light weapons (though they are never expressly defined as such in the rules).

Sweet! I will make a note on 'Black Kiss' may work her into the back story from when he was young.

As for The Myers-Briggs, Once I stopped answering questions based on how I wanted people to perceive me and answered how I really acted I graded out as a Debator Suprise, suprise...

Edit: And then there were three....

** spoiler omitted **

Dwarf racial adjustments: S 10 D 10 Con 12 I 10 W 12 Cha 8

Extra adjustment: S 10 D 10 Con 12 I 10 W 12 Cha 10

Background adjustments: S 10 D 10 Con 14 I 10 W 12 Cha 12

Class adjustment: S 10 D 10 Con 14 I 10 W 12 Cha 14

+4 adjustments: S 12 D 10 Con 14 I 12 W 14 Cha 16

Drawbacks adjustments: S 14 D 8 Con 14 I 10 W 14 Cha 16

Did I mess something up?

Also - where does it say I get feats? Where are the feats? Has it really been this long since I’ve manually made a 1e character that I’ve forgotten how you get feats? There are racial feats, as in 2e? Help. Selecting Steel Soul as my feat.

I took Apt Curse as my malediction. It’s under my Special Abilities.

Posting this under my default, as I might be changing names, so rather not risk hitting the 10 post limit.

Trying to decide on my tradition. Atm, it's a toss up between Charlatanism, Herbology, and Umbral. Would love some input/advice as the tradition benefit of Charlatanism confuses me a bit.

@Monkeygod: I see your confusion regarding the Charlatanism tradition. I updated the Bard class a while back and forgot to change the tradition to match. Gain a free rank in a Perform skill each level and use its bonus instead the bonus for one of the following skills: Acrobatics, Athletics, Deception, Escape Artist, Fly, Handle Animal, Influence, Sense Motive, or Use Magic Device. Essentially, it's similar to Versatile Performance. Of the three traditions you listed, I like Herbology the best, but I'm fond of Alchemists, so that's just my bias. ;-)

@Imaginary Crayons: Just checking in to see how character creation's going. Do you have any questions?

Questions? Yep, a few. But nothing I haven't been able to worth through.
Apologies for a lack of speed. My 20-some son brought his girlfriend to meet us this weekend, and that's been (pleasantly) time consuming.

Working on the CS now, hopefully done by tomorrow.

No problem! I hope it's been an enjoyable weekend.

** spoiler omitted **

I like the Shadow Creature feat. It would seem to fit with our group theme.

YBD, when would you like us to finish up our characters by?

@Monkeygod: All of my preparations have been completed, so we can start as soon as you and Imaginary Crayons are ready. The intro bit is just RP, so if you've settled on a character name, you can make a Gameplay post before you're finished your build.

Why are there cameras? Did I miss something?

Feel free to replace the word “camera” with “point of view”.

Why are there cameras? Did I miss something?

LOL, I thought he was just trying to give it a 'cinematic point of view'

Monkeygod wrote:

Why are there cameras? Did I miss something?

LOL, I thought he was just trying to give it a 'cinematic point of view'

Indeed I was, and now I’m all-the-more-eagerly awaiting Monkeygod’s opening post.

*sips tea*

*cheeky wink*

Tribim wrote:

Monkeygod wrote:

Why are there cameras? Did I miss something?

LOL, I thought he was just trying to give it a 'cinematic point of view'

Indeed I was, and now I’m all-the-more-eagerly awaiting Monkeygod’s opening post.

*sips tea*

*cheeky wink*

Oh yeah??

Well, now I'm not gonna make an opening post! So there! :p

Wait...

Are we close to being able to start? Maybe those of us with characters can forge ahead and everyone else can catch up? I worry we're going to stall out if we don't keep the game moving.

Sorry for the delay in getting a reply up. My poor doggo has had a really awful case of diarrhea the last couple of days, and most of my attention and focus has been on her.

I'll work on finishing my character up in the next day or so.

I'm of the same mind and will update Gameplay after work.

I will really have my character completed by tomorrow. I am profusely sorry that I'm holding things up. Due to some machine issues at work we've been on an extremely unusual level of overtime this week that shouldn't go past the weekend.

This situation is honestly not indicative of my usual playstyle or level of commitment. I fully understand if you'd rather I step aside and let someone else take my spot, though I hope that's not the case.

Sincere apologies.

~ IC

Hey, IC - real life happens! I think we all figured there were some raging fires that you needed to tend to prior to this game. Thanks for the updates.

To be fair, I was making Epperson show up tardy "in game", so thanks for stealing my thunder.

I can't speak for everyone, but I'm going to hold *serious grudges for ruining my roleplaying.

-Dink

*absolutely nothing serious at all

It's all good. I'd seen that you hadn't posted anywhere since Sunday, so I'd figured something had come up. Real life always comes before gaming, so as long as you keep us in the loop, it's all good. :-)

I realised that I hadn't ask how you wanted us to do Knowledge or Lore checks, GM. If they're secret and you're rolling for us, please ignore my roll. If they need to be spoiler tagged in the future, then I can do that as well.

This might be a dumb question, but are we allowed to take feats from sources outside of your homebrew lists? Or are we limited to those on your site? Or did you include all the basic feats from the various Paizo rulebooks?

I've gone through everything on AoN and eliminated anything I considered either useless (Monkey Lunge), redundant (Prone Shooter), or so specific that nobody would ever select it. Of course, it's all based on my opinion, so if you're wanting a feat that isn't on the site, let me know. I'm pretty flexible overall.

Do we have all the equipment we might need for tomorrow's expedition? It looks like Epperson has a hammer and pitons, Tribim has thieves' tools, more pitons, and a grappling hook, and Mahmoud has a crowbar. Any other typical dungeoneering equipment we're lacking? We have lots of rope. A ten-foot pole, maybe?

There's now an editable map in the campaign header.

As implied in the description, the sand will need to be cleared away from the doors before they can be opened.

Light sources for those without darkvision?

Climbing kit?

Portable ram? (Emphasis on breaking and entering)

A shovel! We should definitely have a shovel. :P

Tribim seems to have an ioun torch, and both Epperson and Mahmoud have torches. A climber's kit is 80 gp-- do we have that kind of money leftover? :) I'd normally agree with you on the ram, Epperson, but it sounds like the doors open outward. Of course we wouldn't know that the night before... ;)

Need some clarification: Is the Animals' patron hex Primal Fury not intended to be used on the Witch's familiar? It becomes a magical beast, and Primal Fury seems like it can only affect normal animals.

That's a good catch. I'll add a line to the ability clarifying that it can be used on the familiar.

So...delays happened. Mistakes were made. But character-ing happened.
In short, I'm here. :D No foreseeable OT in the future that should get in the way. (crossing fingers)

Hopefully that's a good thing. Character sheet is in his profile. I await character review, and let me know how you want me to enter the scene, YBD.

I think it would be appropriate for Xynlthras to arrive fashionably late. It'll take around one hour to clear all of the sand away from the doors, so ideally show up early enough to help. ;-)

Hey guys, sadly my Grammy passed away tonight. I will try to keep posting as able, but if I don't for awhile, you know why.

Sorry for your loss, Monkeygod, take all the time you need.

I'm sorry for your loss. Take as much time as you need; we'll be here.

Ah no. That's a shame. Sorry to hear that, Monkey.

I’m so sorry, Monkeygod. I wish some peace for you. Thanks for letting us know. I’ll take it easy on Unatti.

hey Xynlthras, not dissing the way you posted 'catfolk' just trying to follow guidelines I've read somewhere. I'll use Italics for inner thoughts and then speak in the language in bold, the list for languages I use was made up by a fellow gamer.

Gotcha. No offense taken. Thanks!

YBD,
Is the above list by Robert something you approve of us using? I'll know a few languages, so would be good to know if I should also use his suggestions.

Also, should the Herbology tradition grant Distill Compound instead of Brew Potion as a bonus feat?

*Edit*: Your background only grants you a free rank in lore, not any other skills it grants, right?

The Herbology tradition was written before the Spheres Item Creation feats were created, so it probably should grant Distill Compound instead. :-)

Your background grants free ranks in Lore but not the other skill. If the other skill isn't already a class skill, it becomes one.

Your other question is a linguistic one. Yay! That's one of my special interests. :-) The above list is okay to use - as is any other that you might prefer. I, myself, don't use a language list for my posts and will only rarely write out an untranslated utterance. Languages don't really have a perfect one-to-one English translation (especially when using other real-world languages), so I prefer to just describe what the language looks/sounds like. This especially applies to fantasy languages. Much like English has over a dozen words for "grassy area," I'd expect Dwarven to have a ton of untranslatable words to differentiate the numerous types of grudge. ;-) Speaking Aquan without having your mouth submerged in water would probably sound slightly "wrong." The Protean language doesn't even have a written form. That sort of thing. :-) Anyway, as I said, even though I won't be using a Google Translate list, feel free to do so if it helps your immersion. The one thing I'll ask is to differentiate the Osiriani and Ancient Osiriani languages. Mechanically, there's a difference, which is why Mahmoud couldn't read the hieroglyphs but Xynlthras could.

Your other question is a linguistic one. Yay! That's one of my special interests. :-)

Show off :)

I wasn't meaning to imply anyone had to follow the list, I was just trying to explain why I didn't respond in like kind.

Having said that, we should totally come up with a hand-sign battle language like the Far Dareis Mai use in 'Wheel of Time'

As a sign language interpreter, it's literally part of my job. ;-)

If I remember correctly, all of the Golarion human languages canonically have a signed equivalent. Each can be learned with one point in Linguistics. :-)

Just curious, does that mean the tongues spell lets you understand all forms of sign language? ;)