Strange Aeons

Game Master Whack-a-Rogue

Party rolls for me would likely include Skills as well... an investigator, possibly helping out anyone with buffs/debuffs by letting them save a few spellslots, and melee damage with studied strike, though the investigator likely woulnd't be a barbarian beatstick.

I guess I could add that I'm thinking hard about the Warp sphere, which might mean I could add emergency deliveries and removals in tense situations... That would be a bit down the road though.

Also, the Thief tradition seems pretty obvious as the way to do things combat-wise.

Don't really know much about how my gladiator is going to be since we are not actually doing the crunch now. Intend to focus on the Gladiator and Guardian spheres.

I like to marry flavor to effectiveness, but I tend to favor what feels fun. At the moment, net and trident feels fun, thought I'm not sure yet on the how.

Should be a very decent face because while I'll be focusing on "intimidation", all the social skills were baked into one... That is number wise, for a polite gladiator doesn't necessarily work. Let's see.

Have a fun campaign.

I just want a quirky Elven noble, who is an occultist and a bit kooky. Using weird magic ans abilities

Party roles for Tassa, my Shifter (Famine Spirit)
- Melee (and somewhat ranged) damage dealer
- - Melee attacks will often also debuff (grappled, fatigued/exhausted/sickened/nauseated, CON drain)
- Battlefield control with 'web' (flavored as black, oily ichor)
- Maneuverability (as needed: climb, eventually: burrow, glide)
- Survival, Sense Motive, Stealth
- Freaking herself–and her companions–out, as mouths and eyes and tentacles keep popping out of her at awkward moments.

BTW, I've never tried to design someone like this in Spheres, but I'm finding so many wonderful tools. I'm planning to give her a casting tradition including Vampiric Casting, and Innate Curse (Ghoul) to represent the constant hunger that she has to keep in check (or satisfy) within her. And then looking at Bloody Savage and maybe Sanguinivorous as drawback feats to take as tradition boons, to give her a way to

- - -

One more Q: do you have a houserule around Perception? I noticed none of the classes seem to get it as a class skill.

@Sir Longears: No worries. In terms of party roles, I'm assuming damage, demoralize, and tanking.

@gyrfalcon: Good observation! Similar to PF2e, Perception is no longer a skill. Instead, it's equal to your character level + WIS + relevant feats/traits/abilities. Perception DCs throughout the campaign have been reduced to compensate for the loss of the class skill bonus. Overall, this is a slight buff to low-skill-rank classes and Stealth builds.

*DING*
Recruitment is now closed, which means it's time for final party selections. The following players can head over to the Discussion thread:

gyrfalcon
rdknight
Sir Longears
Wyshart
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
To everyone else, thanks for your interest and participation. Due to the quality of applicants, this was a very difficult decision. Feel free to follow along if you'd like, as this should be quite a fun campaign. Best of luck in your gaming endeavors. :-)

Hello, everyone. We recently lost our Rogue and are down to a three-person party. The players have stated that they'd like to find a new member, so I'm reopening recruitment. We're only Level Two, so it's still very early on and easy to add a new person to the mix. If you're interested, now's the perfect time to throw your hat into the ring!

I run games using a heavily-modified PF1e ruleset. The amount of houserules is too extensive to easily list here, but my website (linked at the top of the page) is a handy reference. To summarize, I use Spheres of Power/Might, Elephant in the Room, slightly-modified ABP, and rewrites of almost every class - drawing heavy inspiration from Legendary Games and other 3pp. As a result, I'm not looking for character mechanics right off the bat - just a rough concept. There's a lot of complexity and potential for option paralysis, but the end result is an extremely-flexible somewhat high-powered system that can create pretty much any type of character you want. You'll see what I mean when I introduce the existing party.

Baldrek: human Fighter (net-and-trident, so lots of debuffs)
Mya: gnome Oracle (haste)
Tassa: human Shifter (damage and body horror)

In terms of gameplay, we've been pretty slow-paced so far, so adding a new party member should help liven things up - especially since the entire beginning of the campaign takes place in what's essentially a megadungeon.

If you're unfamiliar with Strange Aeons, so much the better. Each party member starts with near-total amnesia, remembering little more than their own name. You're trapped in a ruined building that's full of monsters and the insane. Outside is filled with a vile yellow mist that hides horrors and prevents escape. When you sleep, you're hunted by a creature of overwhelming power. Will you escape ... or succumb to this endless nightmare?

I'll put something together tonight. Thinking something arcane with a battle familiar... @YBD, would you consider allowing an Inheritor Sorcerer? (The concept might also work with a Summoner.)

Will post something by tomorrow evening. Thinking slayer with trapfinding talent.

Interesting changes to the ranger.

Does the ranger trapfinding allow for magic trap remival or is that reserved to rogue only?

I've finished a first pass on a summoner, who I've named Lara. Of course she can remember nothing of her life before waking up in the asylum, but she clearly ran in criminal circles at one point because she is skilled at Disable Device and knows quite a lot about many different types of creatures. She is very focused on the Scout sphere, so that she can act as a sort of a bard to boost her allies while her aberrant eidolon ("Baby") fights, and she is also a capable sniper with her repeating crossbow. She also has the Life sphere and can extend the nurturing magic of her body to others to take care of any healing the group might need. Personality-wise she is frightened and numb, and she does not understand much of what is happening to her, though she is determined to see it through and look after those who have somehow wound up in her care.

As one of the current players, I'll add that having someone with the ability to make knowledge checks (and other INT skills) sure would be nice.

...though maybe not understanding what anything is fits the horror theme well... ;-)

@eriktd: I'm not a fan of the Inheritor archetype as-written, as it's a straight buff to the Sorcerer. In exchange for fewer spell points, you get a martial tradition, better HD, better BAB, a better 1st-level bloodline power, and martial flexibility that can also be used on magic talents. If it was a Mid-Caster, I think it would be fine - although I'd need to do some tweaking as my Sorcerer rework already includes flexible magic talents at higher level.

@Ironperenti: Magic trap removal is generally a Rogue-exclusive feature as the class doesn't otherwise have a unique 'trick.' There are plenty of ways to build a "sneaky stabby scoundrel," after all - especially when you add Combat Spheres. :-)

For folks who aren't familiar with Spheres yet, there's the Trap Finder spheres talent (which you can get as part of the base Trap sphere if you take the Dismantler drawback)

I've made a few tweaks to the character I worked up. Lara's concept is basically a human woman who apparently had a hard life before waking up here, and who now births monsters. She can summon horrors from the seed that has been somehow planted within her, and this gives her power over living flesh. By psychically transferring her own life-force into others, she can make them grow or shrink in size, and also heal them.

Skillwise, she was probably trained as some kind of fighter/thief before, since she has good scores in Disable Device and Stealth, good scores in many Knowledges (especially Knowledge [occult]), and an excellent Perception. She can Scout to give everyone +1 to hit and +1 AC, and she's not bad with a crossbow.

Her eidolon starts small, but will soon grow into a roiling humanoid mass of mutated mouths and eyes, with a powerful bite (somewhat inspired by John Carpenter's "The Thing"). The two of them fight as a fairly effective team, with Lara ducking and weaving behind "Baby" while sharing what she knows about their opponent or sniping.

I'm hoping this is a suitably horror-ific character that doesn't overlap too much with what the rest of the party is doing, and who covers all the things that you were hoping would be covered.

Or, with more feedback, I suppose I could put together a different concept. Sounds like what you want is an investigator (it is Lovecraftian horror after all…)

Or, with more feedback, I suppose I could put together a different concept. Sounds like what you want is an investigator (it is Lovecraftian horror after all…)

Hi, I'm the fighter, one of the players.

Between me and the shifter, I believe we have damage and even crowd control covered, specially with the Oracle hasting us. Just so you have an idea, we've lost a twf rogue and it did not make any difference in combat. So, having more combat power will not give us much.

What we desperately need is knowledge and out of combat skills. Best case scenario we'd be looking for a bard, investigator or wizard imo.

About horror themes, I have the opinion that the less horror themed and focused our characters are the more space we have to feel scared and impressed about what jumps at us. We already have a horror themed character as the shifter. Another one would be too much.

Hey Eriktd, Lara actually seems like a very cool character concept, but I think Baldrek's point is fair (both about what we need, and about having more of the horror inside the party...Tassa's already pretty disturbing, though I could see her and Lara having some interesting RP).

I think an Investigator would be a great option, if you have an inspiration for one. Or anyone that can help with Knowledge checks and utility (in/out of combat).

Numerous unique options I'm not used to. Was thinking Bard Archeologist but your's doesn't have that option so I turned to the investigator. The investigator with focus in engineering seemed appealing. But, I'm grappling with the sphere's now. Trying to come up with a full concept with inspiration from Sherlock and Indiana. Will try to look at the sphere's a little more tomorrow. I don't mind learning new material but I don't want to slow you chaps down. So, if you're still looking when I finally post something, great. If not, happy gaming. Will see about getting an investigator type out sometime in the next couple of days.

I put some thought into an investigator today, and I believe I have a concept that would be fun to play (and hopefully, to play alongside). I'm thinking of him as a reverse-Allan Quartermain figure: instead of a heroic English colonizer adopted by African natives, Ephra'im is a Mwangi wise man from Vidrian. He has few memories of his previous life before the fugue state, but he does have an occasional flash of living among dark-skinned little people (Song'o halflings), though he is not sure of the circumstances. He is an extraordinarily gifted medicine man, and he is extremely knowledgeable, like he might have been educated at a school for higher learning. He has no trace of an accent. Though he rarely fights with it, he carries an exotic-looking longspear that feels like some sort of totem object, perhaps slightly incongruous with his otherwise Ustalavic style of dress. Mechanically, he would be mostly focused on helping the rest of the team, both in and out of combat-- aiding another, crafting useful alchemical items, and making the most of his knowledge skills to identify and assess their strange foes' abilities.

I made a first attempt at a character sheet for Ephra'im here.

Just making a quick check-in so you know I'm still around. We should have a final decision tomorrow or the day after. Thanks for your patience. :-)

After discussing things with the players, we've decided to go with eriktd's Investigator. Thank you for your patience.

@eriktd: Congrats! It'll be fun gaming with you again. Head over to Discussion, and we'll set about working you into the game.

@Ironperenti: Thanks for expressing your interest, and I'm sorry that we're unable to bring you in as well. The decision was ultimately because I'm familiar with eriktd as a player, so he had a leg up on you. From looking over your other games, I quite liked what I saw, so I'll make a note of you in case you apply for one of my future campaigns. Best of luck!

No worries. I just did not have time to look through your stuff and build a decent character. Your modifications look pretty cool. I hope you guys have fun.