Douena Trestleben's page

Douena Trestleben wrote:

So the real question is, is Douena a cleric with rogue dedication or a rogue with cleric dedication?

I guess I'm going to have to build her both ways to find out.

Well, consider this: do you want Doeuna to have access to first level spells at level 1 or level 4? And do you want more than 1/day?

The thing is, in the party she was running with, Douena was the primary skillmonkey and the primary healer. Clearly, by level seven, the concept was starting to strain.

Unchained VMC didn't fix my problem. Seeing whether the playtest can produce a recognizable Douena who could conceivably have done the things the P1e version did will determine my opinion of playtest multiclassing.

So the real question is, is Douena a cleric with rogue dedication or a rogue with cleric dedication?

I guess I'm going to have to build her both ways to find out.

What sort of halfling or gnome characters do you look forward to playing?

I'll be testing out P2e by seeing if I can make a recognizable version of Douena Trestleben, whom I first created in Beta rules lo these many years ago. That's going to take multiclassing rules, though, and none of those ancestry feats sound anything like her....

[dice=Attack]1d20 - 1 [dice=damage]1d4 - 2

Edit: wooooaa. MAX DAMAGE!!

Hey, that's Douena-caliber damage! :D

*waves cheerfully at Makoa*

What time of day is it, btw?

"Desna doesn't like me underground," Douena grumbles. She looks around for any bits of rock that may have crumbled off the ziggurat for light-stones.

"It's not locked," Douena informs the others. "But if we go in, and they come up after us," she glances down at the speck-people moving around the streets of the city, "they might be able to shut us in."

"I wonder if this could be a temple to Abadar," Douena muses. "He's all about money and shopping."

Douena will check the door for traps (take 10 = 25) and see if it's locked. Do we need to clear away the vines first?

Douena's eyes light up with excitement. "Pezock and I built a boat," she reminds the half-orc, inadvertently inflating her nonexistent role in the construction of the craft, "and then Urza set it on fire, and we watched it burn! Remember?"

"I bet we can see everything from up there," Douena remarks, tipping her head up toward the sky and shading her eyes with her hand as she looks to the top of the spire.

"Let's see how they like this," Douena suggests. Going back to the bridge they just crossed, she waves her arms in the air and incants, "Ooga booga frooga doo! Bibbledy bobbledy boom!" Reaching down, she plants her palm on the bridge and leaves behind her visible arcane mark right in the middle of the span. Nodding with satisfaction, she runs to rejoin the rest of the party. "That ought to make them think twice about following us across."

Take 10 on Bluff = 22 to make anyone watching think she set some sort of magic trap or symbol on the bridge

"Well, it's not like they're going to get a visit from any friendly ape people," Douena points out, waving her hand at the skeletal decor. "Not with their house decorated like that. If you walk into someone's room and they have a person-skin rug, are you going to be friendly?" She thinks a moment. "Do you think Aycenia would be offended by a house made of wood? Being a tree-person, I mean? Of course, her house is made of wood. But it's not dead wood."

"Urza hopes they are shy, but friendly. That would be a welcome change."

Like the vegepygymies! ...no, wait....

Like the yellow musk zombie! ...no, wait....

Like Big Flappy!

"We definitely have to clean this up before we move in the monkey-men," Douena says in a tone of clear disapproval, distracted by the macabre display on the building's walls.

"Okay!"

Douena skips after Pezock.

"But where did all the people go? If they left on purpose, they'll have taken their treasure with them."

"If it is empty, maybe we could move all the monkey-people here," Douena suggests cheerily. "It's a lot bigger than Tazion."

"This place is huge!" Douena marvels. "Do you think it's all empty?"

Can we tell from the architecture/decor if this city was inhabited by humans or snake-people or vampires or what? Any sign of a temple that we can distinguish?

"Well, there's plenty of places to choose from," Douena says brightly. She looks around for a large house without any visible damage to the roof that might make a good HQ for the group.

If we find a likely candidate, Douena will go in under Stealth (take 10 = 27) and find out if anything's already living there -- and hope that if something is, it doesn't have Issilar's insane Perception bonus.

"Maybe in one of the buildings," Douena suggests, nodding at what's visible of the city. "In case it rains."

"I wonder if there's a place like the camp we had on the Shiv with my swing," Douena reminisces. "I miss it. And Aycenia."

"What's the point of keeping going the way we're going if it's not going the way we want to go?" Douena replies unperturbedly.

"We could go back and try the other road," Douena suggests brightly.

"Pezock, Makoa, come with me away from the crocodiles." Douena hopes that there aren't any other dangerous surprises on the other side of the river before she can channel Desna's healing energy.

Channel Positive Energy 2d6 ⇒ (1, 3) = 42d6 ⇒ (6, 1) = 72d6 ⇒ (2, 2) = 4 = 15

She looks up suspiciously at the sky. "Maybe we're already under the illusion-dome," she intimates. "It feels like something's between me and Desna."

Those d6s rolled well under average. :P

"Pezock!" Douena squeaks in alarm. Taking advantage of the situation, she tries to dash between the crocodiles and get to the other side of the fracas.

Double move to ... eh, no coordinates :P ... the place directly underneath the bridge on the other side of Crocodile 3: Acrobatics 1d20 + 17 ⇒ (2) + 17 = 19

Croc 4 has already taken an AoO on Makoa so she's hoping it can't snap at her as well, and if Croc 3 is grappling Pezock, it either can't take an AoO or has to take a -20 to maintain the grapple, by my understanding. If she makes it past, it will open up space for someone else to get into melee with Croc 4.

Douena draws Raogru's mace and attempts to bop the nearest crocodile on the tip of its long snout. "Stop trying to eat Makoa!" she scolds it.

Draw weapon; attack crocodile #2 (fighting defensively) (+1 mace) 1d20 + 6 - 4 ⇒ (18) + 6 - 4 = 20 damage 1d6 ⇒ 6

AC 21 CMD 17 until next turn

I'm not.

Neither is Pezock. Are you, Pezock?

Douena is so pleased by the rare event of Lorenz's agreeing with her that she doesn't even notice that that's not exactly what she had said. "Rope and the low road," she agrees. "We can always go up to the top and see what there is to see from up there without crossing the bridge, on this side of the river or the other. Besides, if the city's invisible there won't be anything for us to see from up there ... but if anyone's watching from inside the city, they may see us on the high road."

"We might have a good fall from there. Are you better at swimming or flying?" Douena asks somewhat flippantly, trusting her own dexterity to cross either bridge -- and her own light weight if the rope bridge is as old as the cobblestone road.

Frankly, I don't think either wood or rope would survive the requisite number of centuries. Hopefully, it's either magic wood or rope, or it's been maintained by someone since the city was lost.

Meh. I hate fake choices. I was actually wondering which road was physically wider by measurement vs. narrower, not more used vs. less used, but I don't suppose we can tell a difference that way, either. 1 is south; 2 is southeast. 1d2 ⇒ 2

"Which road looks main-er? Wider, I mean, like more people would have used it?"

"Which way is the invisible city?" Douena asks the others confidently.

"It's awfully sunny here for vampires," Douena replies, eying the sky doubtfully. "Unless they all live underground. Or the illusion blocks the sun as well as people seeing through it. How do you think we'll know when we get to the illusion? Will we bounce off like an invisible wall? Or will we be walking in the city and not see it until we run into a building we don't see?"

It takes constant proddings and directions from those party members who have a better eye for such things, but Douena takes the lead down the broken road.

If it was a trap instead of a trail, she'd be all over it.

"Where? Those rocks?"

The hills become a little more pronounced over the second day of travel and the terrain is somewhat jagged. You find yourselves having to climb over a number of shallow precipices--never more than a few feet in height, but the frequent climbing does become tiring. "There must have been a lot of earthquakes here in the past," Shokambe comments.

"I wish there'd be an earthquake now," Douena grumbles, climbing over broken ground two-thirds her height. "I've never been in an earthquake."

From where you stand (towards the southwest side), climbing down to the valley will be difficult, but not impossible. However, from this vantage point, you can see that to the northwest, a thin river meanders gently down into the valley. Following the river will likely be a much easier route, but could take longer as you'll first need to get to the river and then follow its winding course. Alternatively, you could try to find another way down.

"We should fly down!" Douena opines excitedly, enjoying the view. "Alton can, anyway."

Douena gives the charau-ka two of the red pearls from the Shiv, amid a flood of words. Then she carefully rolls one of the moonstones into the hole through which the wasps are fed, making them its new guardians, and drops the other in the well where the decapus lived. "It's too bad it's not still alive," she regrets. "It would make a good guardian. Too bad we can't go back to that lake -- remember, Pezock? where we burned the boats? -- and sink one right in the middle. That would make a good quest. Oh well. Maybe we'll find somewhere else along the way to hide one of them."

"I wish we had time to write some cryptic clues and hide them as well. Those are always fun. But I guess we'd better go. Everyone always seems to be right behind us somehow, if they aren't ahead of us."

Rogue (burglar) level 3
hp: 8 (rolled above)
BAB +1
+1 Fort, +1 Will
Sneak Attack +2d6
Trap Sense +1
10 skill points: Acrobatics, Bluff, Diplomacy (x2), Disable Device, Escape Artist (x2), Perception, Stealth, Use Magic Device
Feat: Accomplished Sneak Attacker

hit points: 1d8 ⇒ 8

Woohoo! Got in before LoreKeeper this time. He always steals the good rolls. :)

"They're already going to be following our trail," Douena argues. "Why give them more incentive to attack us? Let them hunt around here for the stones like the snake-person-wizard did. If they find a few of them, that might slow them down for a while, thinking they'll find the rest if they keep looking."

"What about Filgru and Sildu?" she worries. "If the pirates and the Pathfinders and the Asp people all turn up here, they're liable to attack the monkey-people. I told them we'd leave them in peace, but we're likely just to have brought more people to exploit them like Issilgar did. Do you think they'd mind terribly leaving this place and finding somewhere else to live where they're safe?"

"Fun!" Douena claps her hands, her good mood restored. "I'm good at hiding things. Sometimes even I can't find them again."

Douena enjoys the light show but is let down by the ultimate outcome of the process. "Come here so you can go there," she grumbles. "We need to take the stones out again and hide them so no one who comes after us knows where we're headed. Let's drop one down the wasp hole and one in the decapus pit and take the other two with us and find places to hide them, too. Then, in a couple hundred years, some other group of adventurers will probably go looking for them to be judged worthy and make a campaign of it!"

Douena would make sure that Sildu was healed up before she communed with Desna at starrise.

"Does it open a portal?" Douena asks. "I thought it just showed us a new map."

"Oh," Douena reacts with palpable disappointment to Urza's revelation. "Is that all? After walking all the way here, it's going to tell us where to walk next?"

"Urza," Douena asks, "when we use the columns, what will they do?"

Sildu speaks.

Douena adopts a pedagogical stance as she replies.

"Follow Sildu," she tells Mahjik. "You have to go up that way."

"Let her show you," Douena counters. "It's easier to show than to tell." She nods to Sildu to make the climb.