Altani the Smoke's page

I enjoyed making ideas for this game but I think I'll bow out of recruitment. Managing the very high power level and complexity will be a bit more book-keeping than fun for me personally, I think. Have fun, all!

Concept:
A young shamanistic alchemist intent on helping the army to follow the will of Tengri. Intellectual, somewhat quiet and enigmatic but energetic and enterprising.

Mechanical role:
Wizard/alchemist
Very high knowledge checks. Probably like +80 to all of them.
Kind of ok at all non-int based skills, probably in the +10 to +30 range.
Great at ranged damage, utility spells, some buffs, battlefield control, and debuffing the enemy

For my familiar I'm considering oracle/bard for granting a billion buffs and healing everyone like crazy.

Question: The spell points system says "Characters also receive bonus spell-points equal to their spellcasting ability score modifier (for the ability that would normally determine the class’s bonus spells). A character is limited to a number of bonus spell-points equal to the highest level spell he can cast." This means I'll get far fewer bonus castings from my high intelligence than I would in the normal system. If I'm a 6th level wizard, I just get 3 bonus spell points per day. Whereas in the old system, I would have at least 4 bonus spells at each level (my int is definitely over 50, though I don't know what the final value will be yet). Am I understanding that correctly?

All: I'll make my familiar a buffer/healer just for funzies since we have a lot of archer/melee roles. The tricky thing will be finding the most effective ways to buff/debuff. Inspire courage isn't that amazing when people already have +50 to hit and damage, or whatever.

@GM: Are you alright with me taking ranks in lore(some of these specific NPCs or locations)? As an int-based character in this game with it's crazy high ability scores, I think I'll have more ranks than I can spend on the default skills.

I am strongly in favor of not increasing the starting power level, for sanity's sake.

Altani is a wizard/alchemist with a little bit of magus thrown in. She is playing of the historical gunpowder theme and will probably be something of a weird shaman who oversees the squad's explosive needs.

She probably will just walk around on foot, fairly quickly, but will have constant flight she can employ at times. I don't know yet what I want to do with her familiar...

@Vrog: Is there a 3pp feat somewhere that changes a 5 ft step to being equal to 1/6 your base speed? XD

Ok sounds good! I probably won't go for two pets as that will just be maddening to me and everyone. If that leaves me behind in the power gaming, I'll just make my peace with that.

Alright cool. I'll take some of rogue genius games' feats but certainly nothing that changes the spell-casting or combat system.

People can have multiple pets. Yikes. Triple the power level for triple the book-keeping. What a devil's bargain.

Question:
2. So you weren't talking about the rogue genius games feats, correct? So those feats aren't part of our options, correct? I'm 100% fine with that. Just trying to make sure I know.

I was asking about these feats, which I originally assumed were what the GM was talking about. Now I see he was talking about even more overpowered feats than those I linked to.

Wow... I read more of the rule details and the horrifically overpowered feats and I can't decide whether to rub my hands in glee, quake with fear, or develop a headache at what the book-keeping will be like. But I'm game to try this!

Questions:
1. Would you be willing to give us the stat block of a monster we could reasonably expect to face at the starting level? It's very difficult for me to fathom what we should expect to face. Will monsters never/often/always have horrifically overpower feats, such as denied or go first?
2. When you were talking about Horrifically Overpowered feats, I thought that was just a descriptor of Rogue Genius Games feats. Are the Rogue Genius Games feats on the table or no? I don't want to be the one pressing for more 3rd party material so it's 100% fine with me if they're not allowed. I just want to make sure I know.
3. If I have an ability, e.g. the undead template, that deletes my con score, can I still accept penalties to my con score, e.g. point buy of 1 and templates that penalize con? Now my charisma functions as my con so do I use my charisma for combat stamina as well?

Sure thing, GM. I'm not going to be any sort of stickler for historical accuracy, especially in a high-powered fantasy game.

Thanks for the clarifications, Decimus!

caster's submission in progress here. Still plenty to work on but I've decided to build a wizard x/(alchemist x-1&magus 1) focused on battlefield control, debuffing, and damage.

I took the name, but not the nickname, from a badass historical figure. I wish Paizo had a greater ethnic diversity in its avatar choices but I found one I can be happy with. Since gunpowder was an emerging technology when the mongols were expanding, I'm flavoring her bombs (big part of the build) as gunpowder technology she's constantly tinkering with and extracts as herbal mixtures from tribal medicine. Her arcane magic I'll probably flavor as shamanistic, animistic, or both.

GM: Though it seems women had more power in the expanding Mongol Empire than most other nations at the time, they still weren't commonly fighting on the front lines. Will our setting include that aspect, such that it is strange for Altani to feature prominently in battle? Just thinking about what would work/not make sense for her personality, attitude, etc.