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So I’ve just started a new game in which I’m playing a gnome fighter/ thief. The character is a former mercenary in a relatively gothic/ steampunk campaign world.. as such, he’s lost many, if not all of his friends to the atrocities of war. Because pranks and practical jokes are generally important to gnomes, I want the character to remember his army buddies by great pranks.

The problem is that i’m Not even a little bit of a practical joker, so while I could come up with a good prank or two, I don’t think I could come up with enough jokes to cover a whole merc company. Please help.

So I've had a few character concepts over the years that I consider to be "evil for the right reasons"

One of my characters was a Dhampir Cavalier/Bard that I was trying to base on the concept of a commissar, who would lead "troops" into battle and attack any of them who tried to fall back without permission. In practice I would often give people an extra save against fear checks, but I would describe it as an attack against the character. I Do think one time I actually grappled one of my allies and pulled them back toward the fight when they had been hit by a fear effect. The character led from behind so that she could keep others in line and make tactical decisions, but otherwise would have gladly led from the front. (more glory to be had there). She might mourn the losses of her soldiers when things were quiet, but she was absolutely merciless in combat. Still, I think this character was officially Lawful Neutral.

This actually brings a few things to mind. Essentially, the more "evil" your character is, the more you actually have to work with the other players. When I "whipped people back into line", I made a performance check and gave them a new save against the morale effect, I didn't actually attack them. When I grappled the guy and pushed him back into the fight, I asked him if it was okay and, although technically attacking his character, I wasn't hurting his character. Also remember that an evil character probably actually cares MORE about working with their party than most people do. After all, the Evil character has big plans, and big plans means you need people to do some work for you. Sure you could pay people or enslave people.. maybe even ensorcell people.. but really isn't it often cheaper, easier, and more fun to trade in favors and charisma?

Finally, you need to make sure the atmosphere of the game is somewhat confused. By this I mean you should try to act "good" around your party, after all.. they're either your friends or they're at least people you're trying to work with at the time, toward some goal that you desire. What you really want is for the NPC's to be arguing about whether your character is right or wrong when the PC's overhear the debates. So use your downtime to actually do something "Evil for the right reasons" (or make sure the DM knows about some event(s) in your history) and make sure you have some NPC witnesses that could be persuaded to see things your way, then when your party goes into town (searching for rumors or whatever), they might stumble upon some NPC's arguing about whether your character did the right thing or not.. or maybe they don't know it was your character, but the description of the "would-be-hero" is remarkably similar to your character. This would cause the PC's to start asking questions, without immediately jumping to judgment, and makes it less likely that your character comes off as preachy or insane.

When you're a god, THEN you might get to decide the nature of good and evil.. until then you merely guess at it.

We don't really know why Sarenrae left the pit open, but it's extremely likely that she simply considers it to be the right thing to do. People getting hurt by some action isn't a sign that the action isn't "right" or "good".. even though an action causes people pain, it could still be the best possible action.

As a goddess of light (or sun anyway), it's extremely likely that Sarenrae would think that drawing attention to a problem is better than trying to hide the problem away. As others have said, the pit isn't the ONLY exit, but this is a door that everyone knows is open. Whatever comes through that door will be obvious.. or at least more obvious than it might have otherwise been. The pit itself could serve as a warning or a reminder which actually bolsters the forces of good.

As a goddess of redemption, Sarenrae probably feels that anything that comes out of the pit can be dealt with. Locking something away and throwing away the key isn't "redemption". In order for something to be redeemed, you must give it a chance. Sarenrae sent her Harold to "correct" or redeem her wayward followers.. when they killed her Harold, she may have felt she had to kill the followers in order to save others. It's even possible that she felt she was in danger of being corrupted herself.

Finally, the pit is an exit.. and it's also an entrance. Sarenrae might be hoping to one day use the pit to actually heal and redeem Rovagug.

Or there's the answer that others have given.. perhaps Sarenrae just isn't powerful enough to seal the pit.

I've been looking into the magical child archetype alot lately. I haven't played it yet and I generally don't do spell-casters, let alone play with familiars, but I have some experience with the Vigilante.

That said, we have to start with the understanding that this is a Utility/support character. You can basically switch between all of the useful Familiar types. You can have a combat familiar to provide flanking and make Vengeance strikes. You can also have a familiar that can activate magic items, and another that just has some useful/weird abilities that you like.. so just in the selection of familiars there's a lot of utility available.

The Unchained summoner has access to some great buff/support spells, in addition to being able to alter the battlefield with clouds and pits. Also I just want to say that Snowball is a pretty good offensive spell for first level.

Social abilities may not be so great if your group doesn't actually do a lot of role-playing/intrigue, however ancestral enlightenment, well-known expert, companion to the lonely, mockingbird, and conflicted Identity are all social talents that will probably find at least some use in more combat oriented campaigns.

Your Vigilante talent choices are limited, but you still have access to some interesting options. Inspired Vigilante is generally useful, and whip of Vengeance offers some interesting options. You might consider making your vigilante a "Dirty Trick" based fighter.

I was looking at that part about being "only situationally useful" and thinking that it seems, in my limited experience, like combat checks are things that basically anybody can do.. some characters might need a spell or item to do them, but they get done and people have something better than 1d4 to do them. Non-combat checks on the other hand, get divided into "skill roles", and it seems very likely that even a "support" character just won't have the skills needed to make all of the varying skill roles. Even though I've been playing Raheli, who can pick a skill before every scenario (by picking her cohort), I still find that I often lack skills necessary to close locations or acquire boons. If I pick a cohort to help close 1 location, I'm still probably missing skills to close other locations.

In addition to having to cover a wide variety of skills just to have a chance of making a check, the results of failing non-combat checks are usually relatively meaningless. So if you fail a check to close a location, that location doesn't close on that turn.. If you fail a check to acquire a boon, you miss out on that boon. If you fail a combat check though, you take damage and might die. There are barriers of course, but it seems like the damage from those is generally less than combat damage.

One thing I would suggest is having more characters that actually have powers which use their skills. A "scout" style character, for example, could have a power to (once per turn) make a perception role to examine the top card of their location deck. A character with Fortitude might be able to make a fort roll once per turn to avoid 1 damage. I'm talking about little things to make sure that a character's skills are always useful for that character, and not only useful if a certain set of circumstances occurs. So far I've used my disable skill about once per adventure, and I've never used my knowledge skill.

I didn't really get into the perma-death problem in the last post because I think all the solutions would be mechanical, but I like King's suggestions.

I might also be tempted just to say that character doesn't die if there's another character at their location who has cards in their deck.. something like this might promote characters not splitting up as much.

Irgy wrote:

...my friends still mock the phrase "adventure deck number B".

Cards have set indicators, which may be letters or adventure deck numbers. If a card's set indicator is a letter, you treat its adventure deck number as 0. "Adventure deck number B" does not actually exist as a phrase or even as a concept in the game.

Isn't this EXACTLY what makes the suggestion one of the "presentation" suggestions you were asking for? I only mention it because I've heard the exact same mockery at my gaming table.. well, that and I had some initial confusion about "B" and "basic" cards when I first started. We don't need some massive rules change here, just different presentation.

I also hear some griping about boxes not being big enough to fit a full set of sleeved cards.

I had a wild thought that sprung to mind as I was reading other people's thoughts about replay value and more in depth stories. Would it be good/possible to make "character decks" which contains a single character and both boons and banes and even some locations and such.. the idea being that a person would be able to buy a "character deck" and use that deck alone to play through an "introductory adventure" which tells that character's backstory. It would also include cards to play that character in other adventures (perhaps not being as versatile as the current class decks), but it would also include banes and/or sidequests which could be added to adventures, making it feel more like you're playing Feiya or Alaine (for example) through an adventure as opposed to just playing some guy through an adventure.. I'm picturing Feya doing Mummy's Mask and suddenly she finds out that some nearby hags have kidnapped a child and she must rescue the kid.. Or Alaine has to drop what he's doing and put some uppity peasant in his place. What I'd hope for is that a game should feel both like it's telling the adventure story AND like it's telling the character story. Finally, the "character deck" might include a "final encounter" in which the fully leveled character finally faces their epic challenge. I'm not sure I worded this very well to get my meaning, but I also wanted to keep the idea loose enough that people could build on it and manipulate it.

On a more mechanical note, the permadeath thing, I'm of a split mind.. on one hand, if a person can earn permanent rewards, than permanent setbacks should also be a thing.. (and also it adds to the "role-playing" and "drama") on the other hand, permadeath requires that a group replay stuff they've already done (not fun), or that one player be significantly underpowered compared to everyone else (not fun). Essentially, the THREAT of permadeath is something I enjoy, but the REALITY of permadeath is something I disdain. To this end

It was asked early on why anyone would want to hang out with Alain. Consider this. Alain is rich, Influential, a strong warrior, dumb, and predictable. This kind of person would make an EXCELLENT companion for someone like Feiya, who is a social outcast, but smart and magically powerful. To people like Feiya, EVERYONE is an iconic jerkwad, but Alain at least has his uses. Feiya could heal and buff Alain, adding to his combat prowess and prestige.. in return, she could probably convince Alain to pay for her food and lodging.. after all, wouldn't it be bad for his reputation if Alain were seen as the type of guy would allow his associates to starve or sleep in the streets? It's been stated that Alain doesn't actually care about the money he makes.. which means he probably parts with it pretty easily.

Alain is Lawful Neutral, imho, because he is unchanging and uncaring. Alain himself always behaves the same way.. although he likes to think he was "forged in battle".. the truth is that even war hasn't changed him that much. It would be bad for his reputation to be seen as a criminal or oath-breaker and Alain isn't smart enough to consistently hide things like that, so we should probably assume that Alain doesn't break the law or go back on his word of honor. ON the good-evil axis, Alain doesn't specifically help or harm others. He doesn't WANT the soldiers around him to die.. they just do. In the mean time, Alain probably takes care of the soldiers, even if he doesn't bother to learn their names. Just because Alain doesn't know the names of the women he sleeps with, doesn't mean he won't rescue them from kidnappers.. or from their over-bearing parents, without any thought of reward.

I'm new to the game myself and have been using Raheli from the witch deck. She seems pretty simple, but versatile. Her ability makes it so that she isn't reliant on her deck, while the fact that she picks a cohort before each scenario means she can tailor her skills to the situation at hand. While Raheli has some access to healing, she probably won't be able to recharge a cure.

I was warned away from goblins burn and hell's vengeance, because they have some stuff that harms other players.

I'm new to the game and Raheli is the only character I've actually played, but I've been really happy with my decision to play her so far. It's starting to seem to me like the actual cards in the deck don't matter much for her, as they mostly just become fodder for her abilities. When I first noticed that fact, it made her seem a little boring, but then I realized it gives her the capability of putting certain "niche" cards that don't get played much in her deck, and she can then give those cards to other people when needed (and when she has the cards that allow her to do so.)

I find it kinda surprising that I don't see much interest in Raheli on the forums here.