Eris Kleiza's page

OOOH! I love the Magaambyan archetypes and prestige class! I want to play Strength of Thousands someday when I get around to understanding 2e at all. I like them so much I'm happy just to see somebody else play one.

Alchemist bombs are pretty cool actually. I played a Grenadier Alchemist in a Skulls and Shackles campaign for a while. Bombs come in handy for mobs, swarms, weird things you don't want to touch, and softening up tough targets. At the level I got to they're very much a limited resource. The Grenadier at least gets abilities that let them sculpt the AoE very tightly very early. It was also fun to describe throwing them in ways that explained how they did what they did, like sliding one between a pirate's legs to hit the boot of the pirate behind him so it blows up in the crowd rather than on your friends.

I won't worry so much about the healing question then.

I think I will have to abandon Psychic, but that's fine. Single class games come along so much more often than gestalts that it won't hurt to leave that on the shelf for another time.

New Eris might upset the weirdness applecart some. I'm weighing an Aasimar Ranger-Inquisitor (probably no archetypes) versus an Elf Rogue 3/Lore Warden Fighter 17 - Cartographer/Natural Philosopher Investigator 20. As I mentioned before Psychic requires 2 mental stats and doesn't lend itself to skimping on Spell DCs. That makes it tough to gestalt with anything.

I was originally thinking I'd just amend the Eris's original backstory. But then I happened across Bacul Gruii , a settlement in Cordelon. I'm thinking New Eris will be from there.

This could become a plot hook for later if y'all would be interested in such a thing. That village needs to be set to right, and New Eris would need some help to do it.

Sound alright?

So the healing gap thing sent me down the rabbit hole thinking about my character. Boiling Eris down to the fundamentals, there are two things that define her story: 1. Her connection to Shyka. 2. Being a Pathfinder Society booster/shill.

With that established, we really could use a divine caster if possible. I found a couple of possible solutions. One is the Living Grimoire Inquisitor, which is INT rather than WIS based. This is the lean into the crazy option, slapping stuff with an iron-bound holy text and tattooing spells on yourself crazy. Could be a hoot! But, still not really capable of combat due to the lack of investment in physical stats.

There's also the Feysworn Inquisitor, more normal and CHA based, Eris could scrape by that way.

Either way, it is possible for me to get healing at 1st level, so Qunnessaa, you don't have to take White Mage Arcanist (I assume) just to cover healing if there's something else you'd prefer.

Perhaps more importantly though, I concluded that Psychic just doesn't gestalt well. Like an enchanter sorcerer and similar save or suck builds, it requires one to stack so many resources in one place to reliably beat will saves that there's not much left for anything else. It leaves Eris supporting the other two characters, one of whom is actually a DM-PC, while they handle most of the the work in combat. It's not very responsible of me.

I think I should choose one of the two parts of Eris's backstory to make the main thing, while the other is less mechanically represented, and go with a sturdier character.

If I lean into the Eldest side of things, a Ranger - Warpriest or Inquisitor can work very well. Bolt Ace, the crossbow Gunslinger archetype, also pairs really well with Inquisitor.

If I lean into the Pathfinder Agent side a Fighter or Slayer / Investigator or Bard combo is very good. While there wouldn't be any 1st level healing from there, they have the skill points to take the non-magical healing line of feats.

Still bouncing ideas around and looking at archetypes that I wouldn't normally consider. Another nice thing about gestalt is that, since you don't have all your eggs in one basket, a bad but fun archetype on one side isn't so much of a problem.

Oh, one thing. If we have the Bloodrager/Monk, Psychic/Alchemist, and Paladin/(Wizard or Arcanist) configuration, we may have a healing problem.

The only healing would come from Eris on the Alchemist side, and she wouldn't be able to share CLW until 2nd level.

I could fix this by taking a different class instead of Alchemist, but I'd probably need to shave a point off of Eris's INT to do it. Dropping it to 18 saves me the points to raise CHA to 16, which is serviceable for an Oracle. She'd probably be limited to using a crossbow, but that's fine. If I added the Seeker archetype, easy to do if I take a Mystery like Lore which doesn't have a whole bunch of good revelations, we'd get traps taken care of as well.

What was it that ruined you last week+ Qunnessaa? Sorry that things haven't been so good.

Here's my thinking on various options:

1. Mythic: the rules are a mess honestly. I've played briefly with them in a WotR campaign and it makes the high level "rocket tag" aspect of play at later levels so much worse. They also don't help until later level, while a party of 3 will need the most help at the lowest levels.

2. Gestalt: Lets a party of 3 cover all the bases without adding too much power (IMHO) since it doesn't alter the action economy. A given character can do twice as many thing more or less, but no more than a single classed character at any given time. While some combos are powerful, there's less party protection so doing things like going for "all the spells" with a Wizard-Arcanist makes for a very vulnerable character. The need for more durability tends to work against accruing power. As a bonus, it is possible to cap gestalt levels. If Sensen did decide to join later, we could stop gestalt and go to single class if we wanted to.

3. Adding a player. We could certainly do this. My only gripe here is a personal, "secret garden" one. We're happy with each other and play well together. Adding a character changes dynamics and might sour the current recipe a little. Maybe I'm just feeling lazy.

Hm! Psychonaut is really interesting in some ways. I'd never looked at it before. All of the extra spells are already on the Psychic spell list, but that's not a bad thing for a spontaneous caster, just means more spells (and alt casting slots), and thus variety for the Psychic side. The cost is low too (appropriately since all the bonus spells are divinations) just some poison stuff and d4 bombs instead of d6. Cognatogen can still be picked up as a discovery.

Nice find!

I'd probably have to go with alchemist. Eris doesn't even have a good dex, but maybe she could touch attack with bombs.

Hm, that's really too bad. What now?

You probably already know what I'd suggest so I'll go ahead and say it: GESTALT! XD

A party of 3 can work well that way. We could try to find another person though instead?

BOO!

(It's October so that's not weird.)

I'm still working on some details, but I have added the background and Eris is basically ready to go.

As for a wayfinder, would you mind spending a trait on it? (Now with a +1 to initiative checks too!)

Sure! I'll take that deal! In fact you talked me into just going ahead and taking the Additional Traits feat. Now my character will be rocking 5 traits.

In between my post and your reply, I decided to go ahead and bite the bullet. I went with the Psychic class. It's by no means a bad class, just needs some patching here and there like I said. I'd already committed my 3 traits to patching things or shoring up soft spots, so rather than drop one of them, why not just take two more, Especially if it gets me a wayfinder and UMD in class?

Also this way is cleaner, no need for customization. The only thing that falls outside the standard rules is the second of the two new traits, the one for UMD, is actually for ratfolk. If you're okay with letting that slide, that's all I need.

So here is Eris. No longer a Half-Elf, but an Aasimar, and no longer from Gralton, but from Uringen. It'll get explained in the backstory. I still need to write it, but I have it all worked out. Still keeping the 'grew up living at the Grist Mill with the gnome venture captain' part, and still a pathfinder agent.

Aside from gear, backstory, and editing for errors, Eris is complete.