Aaron Sarris's page

Hey everyone,

I unfortunately have some bad news. As some of you know, I was recently promoted a few times at work in relatively quick succession. As such, my writing time has suffered greatly. I held off on this the longest time to see if it would improve, thinking it might just be me having to get used to things in the new positions, but it hasn't and is expected to get busier rather than cool down. As such, I am more or less forced to drop from at least a number of campaigns I was in. I ultimately decided to withdraw from this one as the newest one as well. I'm very sorry for this, as I know the group of writers is excellent. However, I can't pay the bills with PBP, sadly. I wish you all the best of luck and fun.

Kind regards,
Trevor/Aaron

Aaron takes a look at the ladder with the waterfall beyond and mutters to Gren. "Probably slick as a Calistrian High Priestess' pleasure temple during peak Sunday hours."

He touches it and sighs. "Yep."

climb: 1d20 + 1 ⇒ (2) + 1 = 3

He seems to try taking a step but pretty much immediately loses his grip, upon which he casts Feather Fall and gently floats downward next to it. "Probably should have led with that, but you never know."

He tries to target as many allis as possible with the cast. So if they are within 55 ft he can presumably target everyone and we can just all jump down into the chamber. Unless it is like 1500 Ft deep, which I sure hope it isn't!

Aaron remains silent during the interplay with the statues, guesstimating that an actual dwarf and native to these lands had a better chance to talk their way out of this - even if, to his amusement, the priest seemingly had no clue of his race's own dieties. "Grundinnar blesses your path, Master Thorek. Perhaps your Kins' diety of friendliness and hard work acknowledges your efforts on both fronts." The old bard muses as they depart from the scene.

He nods thoughtfully as the topic of scouting onward becomes apparent. "Shall I accompany you forward, Master Grenwold? I have some ability to see in the dark and I know my way around the shadows and traps. Though if you would prefer to go alone, I will of course respect your decision."
The old, abino-skinned man extends a friendly hand to the gnome, wondering if they would accept his offer what with said gnome having been very sceptical of him thusfar.

If Heroism ran out on Aaron, which I assume it has since we started our attack on the outpost, he will recast it on himself and Gren before they head off to scout. Or just Gren if Gren wants to solo :) He will also use Heightened Awareness on himself from a wand. Stealth and Perception will both be at +19 during scouting. I could buff it further with tears to wine but that spell has been called cheesy before and I'll refrain from using it for now. Also, Aaron has Darkvision 60 ft from his Shadowbound Oracle curse.

Aaron smiles as Thorek and Gren sped onward and completely destroy the nearest few ogres. "Ah, the vigor of the long-lived. Well struck, both."

Stepping out from behind the two, Aaron takes his starknife and twirles it in his hand, faster and faster until it spins seemingly impossible fast, after which he confidently throws it straight into the mist! "Of course, I have a few tricks as well. Let's see if I still have it..."

Desna's shooting star (advanced benefit) 1d4: 1d4 ⇒ 4
attack, IC +3, GH +2, -2 range increment, vs FF?: 1d20 + 19 ⇒ (5) + 19 = 24
damage, magic piercing adamantine with 4d6 sonic: 4d4 + 4d6 + 52 ⇒ (4, 1, 1, 2) + (4, 2, 5, 2) + 52 = 73
Gallant inspiration?: 2d4 ⇒ (3, 4) = 7

If the attack roll of 24 misses (maybe vs flat-footed as the ogre presumable doesn't see the attack coming in the mist), he uses Gallant Inspiration on himself, which grants an additional 4 to hit, so it'd be 28 to hit total. The reason the damage is so high is that he rolls a d4, and as a full-round he throws the starknife, which hits that many times. So on a 4 the one attack roll deals damage of four attacks.

if it hits:

A scream follows from said fog bank, after which the starknife flies back to his hand, covered in blood! "I still have to figure something out about the mess. One of these days..." He says as he wipes the blood on a cloth.

Sorry, I missed the map. Aaron moved forward a bit so that he is near the front but behind thorek and gren.

Gentle reminder that all physical attackers have mad bard buffs. +5 hit and +5 and +1d6 damage. !

"Hm. Fog makes for difficult fights," Aaron says, "As inscrutible as the many songs attributed to it. But who am I to not pay tribute?"

He smiles as he walks forward and begins to sing and then sing as the words seemed to gain power , a palpable vibration in the air that hung both around him and the companions he directed it to, creating an odd sensation that something unseen was there with him, dancing around his words and watching over the group as he did.

"The fog is finally lifting
Now we're seeing clearly
Religion got it twisted
Thought they knew, but missed it
Spent their time just searching
Codex pages turning
But You are not to be learned
You are not a doctrine

We already know You
For You live inside us
You are captivating us
We already see You
For everything we are
Is full of who You are

The veil has finally lifted
For so long we've drifted
Thought that You were angry
Thought we were evicted
Couldn't see Your nature
Fearful of the future
Waiting for the rapture
When were never more here."

Aaron's 'surprise round' is to cast Moment of Greatness on everyone from his wand. During his actual turn, he moves a little ahead of the group and starts his Bardic Performance as a swift (inspire courage). Assuming no other morale or competence bonusses are present on other party members, the total bonus of Good Hope + Inspire courage is a +5 bonus to hit and damage rolls (3 competence, 2 morale), an extra +1d6 sonic damage to all weapon damage rolls and a +2 morale bonus to all saving throws, skills and ability checks.

Everyone can, once in the next minute, choose to use the moment of greatness buff to get an extra +2 to any attack, skill, damage roll or saving throw when you roll it.

Once slightly in front, he Readies a Grease spell for an ogre to come into view out of the mist. DC 18 reflex save or fall prone. Aaron has 7 mirror images as rolled above in case something focus fires him. If he has a surprise round action his first standard does nothing as he doesn't want to waste the spell.

init: 1d20 + 14 ⇒ (17) + 14 = 31

Remember everyone has +2 from good hope!

"Ten ogres, you say? A good warmup, if anything! Just a little bit of magic to tip the scales, and we should be good to go." Aaron says, not particularly concerned about this news and assenting to an agressive approach.

I am assuming the party agrees with assault as the approach, if not then he doesn't do the following:

Drawing upon his innate magical abilities, he bestows a sense of hope and rightenousness on the group. They *would* break through whatever monsters tried to imprese their progress into the valley! After that, another few words have his form blur and split into seven copies of himself, warping and weaving through another!

Mirror images: 1d4 + 3 ⇒ (4) + 3 = 7

Seven Mirror Images. He also casts Good Hope, which grants everyone a +2 morale bonus to attack, damage, all saves, skills and initiative checks for 10 minutes. He will give up his own heightened awareness to get another +4 so his next init roll is at +14.

Nodding, Aaron glanced aroud the group. "How do you prefer to fight? A straightforward rush or do we send a scout first?"

Aaron is fine with either. I think the optimal play might be for whoever is best in stealth, probably Grenwold, to go see what it is, guesstimate if the creatures are open to diplomacy and if not go into combat right away with buffs up.

I'll hedge my bets as stated in discussion, and use one Heroism and Heightened awareness on myself just in case we run into trouble early. If it takes a long time to travel, it's just one level 2 slot lost. Aaron can easily spread around morale bonusses when he needs to, as well.

To clarify, the reason i am not buffing everyone with heroism or other spells now is that i don't have a clear idea of the scope of the valley and travel speed yet. Were it to take us hours to find anything worthwhile, all his 10 minute/level buffs like heroism would have expired. If Aaron only buffs himself initially he would lose only two spellslots were that to happen.

@ Grenwold I'm not sure which teamwork feats you'd spread around but Aaron would graldy partake in any buffs, sure. Also on board with the feather step. Aaron will cast Heroism and Heightened awareness on himself. Most relevant is likely that it adds +4 to all his knowledge and perception rolls in the near future. Otherwise he's good to go.

"All right. If we don't find anything at their campsite, we could always follow the tracks deeper into the valley. Can't be that hard to track an entire army if it's heading to once specific location," Aaron comments, falling in behind Thorek on the march.

Sorry, which ruins? @GM, can I roll a knowledge check on the Ruins Thordek is referring to? If he refers to the entire mountain range or complex, I'll Lore Master a knowledge: history here for a result of 39.

"All right. Gren, Ringo, Daria. It is good to meet you too. Does Ringo eat? If he can't speak, perhaps I can share some dried fruit as a token of good faith?" He eyes the Moose and holds out a bit of his rations.

"But to business then. Thorek, you asked what I found. Two things, mostly. There's a lot of fresh military tracks in this region. Heavy-duty boots, unusually identical. Seems to fit the profile of standard-issue gear issued by an army. Unless there's been a lot of dwarven activity here as of late, it suggests the Legion is indeed active here at this very moment." He then gestures towards the sky. "It also seems to be hunting grounds for giant birds. If I had to guess, Rocs. Nasty overgrown chickens, those. Lift you up to let you fall to your death from great heights, then eat your remains. That's them being playful though, as they can just tear you apart instead. Once saw one peck a man's lung straight out the back of his chest. My advice? Don't get caught and hope they prefer goblins over us. We'd probably do well to keep half an eye on or in the sky as we go."

He smiles then, decades of mirthlines forming around his eyes. "In short, a wonderful and challenging mystery for us to solve. And for the greater good, no less! Come my fellows, adventure awaits!" He says, and merrily begins advancing on the path.

The old man smiles at Lily. "Thank you, madam Lily. A pleasure to make your acquaintance." He does a flourishing bow towards the mesmerist. "And you Thorek, and...? Apologies, I don't believe I caught your names?" he glances at Grenwold and Daria.

"We've met friends and enemies along the road, but if you're a member of the Radiant Oath like King Greathammer, then I think you're worth extending some trust."

The bard studies Thorak carefully, then gives a respectful nod. "Clever. Yet I've seen him seated with Ambrus Valsin in Absalom often enough to know he's part of the Grand Lodge, not the Radiant Oath," He smiles then and get a faraway look. "Ah, those were the days. Feasting, comradery, reporting our findings to one-another... and Nigel running in to beg us for help with yet another disaster at the Blackross museum. It's how I often pictured retiring, before-"

He sobers and shakes his head. "Ah, forgive me. We are deep in the unhospitable territory. Nostalgia is best kept as a comfortable arms' length.

Another giving it any real try notes no deception.

Aaron attempts to light his pipe as he listens to Grenwold, for some reason or another failing to light it again and again. Eventually he sighs and gives up. "That is fair. Trust has to be earned, especially on a battlefield. If you won't betray mine, I will give you the same courtesy."

"I am not sure what I could say to convince you otherwise, master Gnome," the very pale man admits. "I am deliberately not wearing my wayfinder or the king's writ, so that in case of capture, I could pretend to be a scholar or travelling performer. As such, I have no hard proof of my allegiance other than my word and that I didn't already teleport out of here when you revealed yourself as enemies to the legion. If I were part of them, I'd like to think I would already be far away, warning their allies of your coming. If nothing else, you should probably believe that anyone capable of travelling here safely by themselves has access to rather potent tricks."

@GM I assume Aaron just arrived here and did not find any relevant information yet?

@GM/Thorek does there exist some sort of secretive passcode the inhabitants of Craggodan have among themselves to recognize their friends as allies or such?

"Hm... it seems your words speak true, Thorek. That is good to know. I suppose that makes us allies." Upon closer inspection, the approaching elder man was unusually pale. He also seemed to have difficulty looking at you, constantly shielding his eyes or squinting at you, depending on your size and position.

perception: 1d20 + 14 ⇒ (4) + 14 = 18

"Odd, I thought there were more of you. I suppose my eyesight is growing weaker with time," He says. "Regardless, my name is Aaron. Good to meet all three of you. And you, sir Moose." He tips his hat to ringo without missing a beat, instantly assuming the animal was intelligent and used to way crazier stuff happening all around him. When you shared roofs with fellows ranging from shady dominatrix warlock librarians to paladins tricked into openly forsaking their gods and worshipping non-existant gods of barrels instead (somehow without losing their powers), to name just two examples, one's definition of 'normal' was fairly wide.

"I came here as a representative of the Pathfinders. As you may or may not be aware, the King of Craggodan is a member of our society. With the recent increase in Legion agressiveness, he used his connections to organize an investigation into unusual Legion activity in the region. That expedition would be me. I am what they call a Seeker, one of its more elite members." He smiles faintly. "Even if that might be hard to believe. But I found that being underestimated often outweighs the downsides of my lost youth."

He nods thoughtfully as he takes in everyone from up close. "Each of you has the bearing of someone who's seen their fair share of bloodshed. Perhaps, given that our goals seem to align, you would be amenable to travelling together in this region? I'm sure the king wouldn't mind me assisting in the disappearance of the Legion's allies so long as I can find and disable whatever other advantages they gain from their presence here."

" Hail, stranger! This is a dangerous place to be wandering alone--there's a war on! What brings you to such a remote place? What brings you to such a remote place?"

The figure stops his limping gait, raising his hand to shield his eyes from the sun as he looks back up at the party. Alarmed at first, his posture seems to relax as he regards a notable lack of hobgoblins. "What, you ask? That would be the many missteps and errors of judgment I made on the way here, of course," He jokes. "Still, it does an old man good to see the faces of seemingly friendly fellow travelers in equally remote places."

There is a nod as he fully takes in Thorek's appearance. "Hm. Your attire wears the markings of Craggodan, master Dwarf. Tell me, this war you speak of, are you part of it and does it place you at odds with the Legion?"

I think the plan was to meet you guys early on in the valley, like soon after you land.

Out of curiosity, what are we waiting for before we continue to advance the story?

You guys thing goblinoid bane is good for the amulet of mighty fists? Narratively it makes sense, but perhaps not mechanically if we are going against morlocks…

Well, at the very least we know we'll be facing more of the legion in the future. The amulets are very expensive but you do have a massive 53 k gold to spend.

Thanks for the answers, GM. I'll ponder a bit on Aaron's stealth as it is indeed a bit lacking, but funds are stretched pretty thin as they are. Additionally, I believe the cloak of elvenkind occupies the same item slot as the cloak of resistance which makes it borderline unusable/fairly suicidal to equip over that one.

That said, I'm pretty much ready to go whenever. Is the party currenty underway to the valley of Aloi? If so, does the backstory that Aaron was dispatched there by the Pathfinder King of Kraggadan to investigate legion activity work for you as an angle?

Okay, re-edited Aaron for 15 pt buy. He's ready to go again! I eventually chose to drop the int and wis slightly and forego UMD as a skill. With the remaining gold I bought some more consumables.

@Gm I had two questions for shopping:

-Is it okay to buy half-charged wands for half price of a full wand or is that not possible/available?

-I wanted to buy a masterwork tool for stealth, but unsure what counts for that. I know of the Sleeves of Many garments, a 200 g item that allows you to alter your clothes to any mundane appearance at will. Since Aaron wears his clothes over his armor, this should allow him to use colour his clothes to the environment, whatever that is. Would you allow those to count as a masterwork stealth tool for +2 stealth?

It was brought to my attention that this is a 15 pt point buy adventure instead of a 20 pt buy one. This introduces a host of problems to Aaron's current build and I'm trying to decide what to leave out of it. One possible fix is to abandon dexterity alltogether and drop Deadly Aim. That greatly reduces his damage potential and can't really be fixed in the future. However, it is optimal for everything else except damage.

A second possible fix is dropping intelligence to 12 and wisdom to 10. That would mostly remove one of his non-knowledge skills, such as UMD, stealth or thievery. The most likely sacrifice to this is the UMD skill and his emergency scrolls of breath of life and break enchantment.

The other possible fix is to lower his charisma by 1 and wisdom by 2. That lowers his stats across the board but at level 12 he can buy most of it back with the stat increase there - until we get to 16 th level and then he had one stat increase leftover.

I find I'm having a bit of trouble deciding.

Ah, I see I overlooked that there was a second tab. My bad. And no worries, it wasn't much work.

(Assuming it helps you all/Thorak out a bit with the bookkeeping) I went ahead and added money values to the non-consumable, non-claimed items. As it stands, the total sell value of the unclaimed non-consumables (though it does add some expensive basic healing potions) is 84355 gold. That is 28118,33 gold each split among the three party members prior to our joining. It can go down a bit depending on how many unclaimed healing consumables you wish to keep.

This is assuming the tab called 'treasury new' was correct and up to date.

For Aaron, it might even make more sense for us to meet him in the Valley itself? I think I recall you saying he (Aaron) was investigating the tunnels that link to Kraggodan's undercity on behalf of King Gorm Greathammer, so that could be how we meet up?

This is how I originally envisioned it, yes. And that definitely works, making some assumptions that the King views the Molthune legion as a threat and wants the Valley explored due to unusual activity and potential risks to the citadel. That's probably enough for Aaron to have no quelms about actively joining a group of enemies to the Legion during this employment.

Well, my connection is to the pathfinders and through them, the dwarven king of the nearby sky citadel (who is also a pathfinder). It seems like they would encounter him on the way, though there has to be some reason for them to travel together. Does the king catch wind of their impetus to investigate the problem area and dispatch me there to assist them or such? Or it could also be an 'enemy of my enemy is my friend' type of situation. I'm open to id3as!

Aaron is ready to go!

This is the base build I ended up with. If there are any wishes, feedback or critiques I'd gladly hear them. The current concept goes very hard on condition removal, and while it does tie into his backstory, perhaps it does so a bit too hard. He could I.E. ditch the Break Enchantment or Breath of Life scroll for a Wand of Heightenend Awareness which would probably be better in most situations - until shit hits the fan and we wish we had those emergency buttons, admittedly :')

After thinking about it some more and seeing some of the other high-quality submissions, I will withdraw from the running. I don't think I have the game knowledge required to make something equally effective as multiclassed psychic vampires and the like, especially on limited time :') And, to be honest, the background story got a bit bit stuck in generic zero to hero too. Inspiration just wasn't with me this time.

Good luck to everyone in the selection process!

Aaron Sarris wrote:

This definitely sounds interesting! I should be able to get up a submission before next saturday. I'll probably make a divine character of some sorts, probably a paladin.

** spoiler omitted **

IC reply attempt:

** spoiler omitted **

Thanks for the IC response :) Wish I could respond in-character at length but still working on completing the submission first.

I was a bit in dubio on which character concept to go for as I had two for nearly the same mechanical idea, but the short of it is that I'll probably go with a female paladin of Faylana, who elected to stay behind in the Midnight Fane somewhere during the events of WOTR. Ever since, she's become a gladiator of sorts in the arena of Alushinyrra. Both because it appeals to her warrior nature and that of her goddess, but also as a pseudo-deterrent, to keep showing the demons that the normal mortals can fight back in force, and that opening the rift to invade Golarion again is a very, very bad idea. That it allows her to keep killing demons while honing her skills is a nice bonus, for that time she might eventually leave to return home.

(Yes, I admit I've been playing too much metroid dread and just had to make a female badass warrior of sorts vaguely inspired by that much awesomeness!)

Oh, and since it looks like the apocalypse is happening in the story by Qlippoth invasion, I don't think she'll make any fuss about teaming up with evil characters or the like. Save the planes first and all :)

This definitely sounds interesting! I should be able to get up a submission before next saturday. I'll probably make a divine character of some sorts, probably a paladin.

Have fun for the lucky few selected! I'll definitely keep an eye out for if/when recruitment for the second table starts.

Some last-minute minor alias tinkering by me: I slightly cleaned up my application (removed some spelling and grammar mistakes from the story/background). I also added some minor extra background to the story part since I felt his oracle and oracle-archetype side needed a little bit more attention in it. Finally, I added a note to the possible associated NPC's for who might be a good replacement character for Jieran if the world of Taldan intrigue is just too much for him to handle and he'd permanently bite the dust.

Well, that's everything! This was a lot of fun to write and I'm very excited to maybe play. Looking forward to the results and good luck, everyone.

Is there anyone in particular that would want people to look over their profile? I want to do some browsing, but there are soooo many.

Well, since you're giving constructive feedback to others I felt someone should reward your service :)

I would feel honored to get someone to prove read mine.

All right! Well, here is my feedback:

Countess Cassiopeia Zespire

What I think is good:

-You have uncommon classes with a realistic stat spread for a person, which makes her feel more fresh and believable, respectively.
-Your feats and traits all center around social skills, which fit your background and the campaign theme. In that, your submission feels consistent with itself.
-It contains all the information on your character that someone needs to know.
-I like the idea of the background story, which, if I understand correctly, is about a noble thinking the nobility has become rotten and has to fix itself, which fits with Taldor’s setting.
-You seem to be aware that there are a lot of spelling and style mistakes in the backstory, and asked for help in proofreading. That’s great; knowing is half the battle. Unfortunately, I can’t covert everything with the time that I have now…

What I think could be improved:
-You can probably improve the formatting itself a bit to make it more reader-friendly. For one, you tend to use large blocks of text with no full line breaks (empty lines) in between. This makes it a bit harder to read through imo and might scare off a potential reader. Secondly, you tend to make long lists of abilities in which every single spell or skill is on a separate line. This makes these lists appear very long without saying much and this enforces the wall of text problem.
For instance, looking at the spells, a much clearer way to put it down would be:

Knacks (Psychic spells):
Level 0: Daze, Detect magic, light, prestidigitation, stabilize.
Level 1: Mind thrust, sleep, burst of insight.

Similarly, when looking at your list of skills, it’s good having a full breakdown of the value of every skill but that makes it drown in a wall of text. To fix this issue, you could make a separate heading with named ’skills’, which only state the total modifier for each skill, and then name the current list ‘Skills: Breakdown’ in case someone wants to know how you got to those values. This way, you give everyone what they want: a very quick and easily-readable skill reference chart and the detailed breakdown separate from the short version.

For the background story:

I had to read it a few times to understand since the into is a bit long and becomes a bit of a word salad with the absence of line breaks and a lot ‘sweeping, overly dramatic words and statements’. Maybe what you could do is go a bit easier with generalising statements and give more examples of the problems earlier, or write her witnessing a more relatable event (for a reader) first from where we can understand why she feels those things.

I'd be happy for anyone to read and/or critique mine. Did my best to capture 'the soldier past his prime, who lost his faith in the loyalist government' stick. Of course, i'll return the gesture too :) Perhaps we could think of some shared background.

I'm slowly going through reading the other backgrounds on my own too; people have obviously put a lot of thought in their submissions. Wish i could respond to them all but with their number and extensiveness, that's not feasable with real-life obligations. I'd have more time next week since my vacation starts then, but that would be past the deadline...

All right, I finished adding the missing tabs to the alias. Eagerly looking forward to the results! Good luck to everyone still writing.

Here's my submission!

I did my best at involving plot hooks from the guide and the inner sear world book so as the fit the campaign and setting.

Backstory-wise, the condensed version is that he's an aging half-elven former military officer who lost both his sight and the lives of his men and career after an argument with the Strategos over discriminiation against non-pure humans (and co) in the Taldan army. Now, he's looking for a chance at redemption and setting things right.

To spice things up a bit, other than being mostly blind, he's past his prime in age and form and has to work his way back up. He also has an adult son who has joined Pythareus and is thus on 'the wrong side' and a mercenary daughter whom he hasn't heard from in a while. There are some other plothooks and possible NPC relations in the character sheet along with a short story I wrote on his background.

Game-Mechanically, he is a base paladin I oracle with the clouded vision curse and the battle mystery. He can serve as the group tank or melee damage dealer, as well as having excellent social skills out of combat (though I imagine being a half-elf will be a complicating factor in Taldan high society). Due to his classes, he also eventually learns a large contingent of healing spells and abilities and could also function decently as a tanky main healer, though his build wasn't made around this. Late game, he shines at boosting his allies with a great array of inspiring party buffs, fitting for a former commander.

Well, good luck with the other submissions everyone! I'm always open and happy to think of potential ways Jieran has met your character in the past and what their current relation might be.

Edit: As of the time of posting, my submission is about 60% done. It's missing a few sections, namely the class abilities block, the OC NPC relations, the party role/projected build idea going forward (though that's mostly discussed in this post above), and possible relationships with the other submissions. I also saw his equipment isn't specified in the statblock yet. However, the site has been acting strangely the last day and it won't allow me to update the alias' profile while it does still allow me to post. Maybe there is a maintenance issue, I guess. I'll come back to this asap and fill in the relations if other authors are willing to work on it together :)