Glorfinmad's page

Character in my game is nearing 6th level, our cap. He has styled himself as a hunter of the biggest of game. Have idea I want made concrete.

Hazael, the Fear Eater. An outrageously large raven with its face a porcelain white mask like one of the long nosed mardi gras fools masks. It has dominion over darkness, should be able to induce hallucinations, literally consume fear, and have a host of movement based abilities. But don't let my ideas constrain you, and don't go easy. I want the bleeding edge of ~CE12.

When you guys talk about adding traps are you talking about just adding in "Trapfinding" or adding in bonuses to crafting and DC's like in the uh... one second... Trapper archetype of Ranger? The lower levels of this class are already pretty dense, where would you put that progression?

Getting trapfinding at 1, then traps at 5 like the Trapper, and then a new trap every two levels would get rid of the empty levels at 11 and 17, and make that mostly-empty level I spoke about the other day at level 5 interesting as well...

Still. Is trapfinding core class worthy, or more worthy of something like an archetype?

We're playing again today, I might try and convince them to try a lower level build at some point.

In addition to the changing the animal aspect to rounds/day (which I think would be a good move, just be careful about making the class even more MAD,) maybe look into shifting the Second Animal Focus to around 6'th level. That way you get your shifting, which is gold efficient and cool until 6'th level, then you get another +2 or you have a +2 and some skill bonuses (which is ~62% WBL at 6'th.)

If the Animal Aspect is supposed to allow you to have flavor and be less reliant on one of the staples (which I think most people here are using it for.) Then you need to make sure it's an appreciable bonus all the way up. By shifting the second focus down in the tree and keeping the 8'th level greater focus you can spread the power out more, while keeping the 8'th level power spike. You just don't go from, y'know, 4k gold worth of ability to 40k gold worth of ability. Now you're going from 4k to 10k to 40k.

Would it be too much to shift things around and have:
Level 1: Get Animal Aspect
Level 4: Two Aspects
Level 8: Greater Aspects
Level 12: Three Aspects
Level 16: Greaterest Aspects
This way one of the two core abilities, Animal Aspect, is improving every four levels.
Consider the Ranger's Combat Style. It starts at 2, then increases at 6, 10, 14, and at 18. Hunter would then start at 1, increase at 4, 8, 12, 16. The intervals are the same except the first, which helps to maintain a sense of progression as the player levels. You could also consider that Wildshape on the druid has progression at 4,6,8,10,12. Which is a 2 level progression speed that starts up at level 4. This would put the Hunter somewhere inbetween. Faster than one of the iconic ranger abilities, but slower than the druids. This is more in line with the Hybrid idea I think.
AND triple aspects and teamwork feat would be a kickass capstone in PFS play.

Also, I just noticed. Level 16->17 the class is only getting... one extra spell per day. That's it. That level would make a fine zombie. 10->11 as well you're only getting +1 BAB and an extra spell. No new iteratives or levels of spells. Just +1 to them. 16->17 I understand. But 10->11 is PFS level.

Ahh! I forgot to mention, I made use of Fury's Fall to get +DEX to trip in order to help make up for my not-full-BAB. With +4 STR/DEX on I was able to put up +21 to trip. Not sure how numbers USUALLY look around level 10, but it felt pretty good.

If anyone wants my full feat list or anything let me know. It starts with Combat Expertise and EWP(Fauchard) and ends with me laughing.

*sigh* I accidentally closed the wrong tab on my wall of text.

I played a level 10 Hunter earlier today in a small session of what will be a brief ongoing game (maybe 4 sessions long.)

Human Hunter with initial stats 18 / 14 / 10 / 13 / 12 / 10 after racial modifiers on a 20 point buy. Boy was I MAD. Probably could have dropped the 14 in DEX to a 13 and picked up a 12 in con, but I was rushed for character creation time. For my two stat boosts I raised my wisdom both times to end up at a 14 (so I could cast ALL my spells.)

I decided I would use Felling Smash, Tandem Trip (Teamwork), and Outflank (Teamwork) to make a character who trips the hell out of any enemy while outputting a decent amount of damage (nothing obscene.) At level 11 I would pick up Greater Trip.

Thanks to the bonus teamwork feats I was able to accomplish this with one teamwork feat to spare (I took Stealth synergy as my last one in case you were wondering, mostly for thematic-ness.) Were that I had a third Ally who was willing to take a teamwork feat, we probably would have replaced that with Gang-Up.

My animal companion was a small cat named Boskow. He was trip focused, and took no archetypes. If I could have taken Gang-Up successfully then he would have been a Bodyguard.

Aaaaaanyways, the game played out well and I was pretty effective (group was myself, a very angry Barbarian, and a Wizard.) Interestingly Animal Aspect was incredibly strong. I think its mostly because I started out at a higher level. But 4 encounters per day (what most modules and even DM's in my experience design for) means that I can forgo buying a Belt of Physical Might (40k gold) and instead get other stuff. Thanks to this I was able to grab a +3 Cloak of Resists, +2 Keen Fauchard, +3 armor, +2 Ring of Protection, and a +2 Amulet of Natural Armor, and still have 10k gold left to play around with (I picked up +2 to hit/damage for my companion with that in addition to some potions.)

Animal Aspect is deceptively strong because it is, in the worst of worst cases, trading off 1 or 2 fights a day of having your BoPM for having a BoPM for yourself AND your companion the rest of the time, and a bunch of spare cash to kit yourself out with. Granted, at level 4 you're pretty much assured to have 2 fights a day where you dont get your +2 stat boost, but during those fights you're 4k gold up. It's an interesting tradeoff. I don't understand the people on these boards who think the ability is worthless because your stat boosts can be replicated by very expensive items. At level 8 it is impossible to have a BoPM +4, so you're ahead of your ENTIRE wealth by level IN ADDITION to having that for your companion, IN ADDITION to being up on gold on whomever has had to spend money on a belt or headband. It's a subtle but massive power spike.

What I didn't enjoy was that the rest of my abilities were just circumstantial fluff. Woodland Stride? Swift Tracker? Boooooring. That means that as I level all I'm really getting is more of the same stuff per day outside of my spells. Granted that may be enough to make the class engaging as you go along, but it's still a point I'm worried about. Consider going from 4'th to 5'th level. I dont get any new attacks, or new saves, I get 1 more use per day of my animal aspect ability (which is strong, but a very passive kind of effect,) and I get one extra second level spell per day. I don't actually get anything new, I just get more of what I already had. It isn't a dead level, but it sure as hell doesn't feel like one thats very alive.

Now... about spells. I chose to limit myself to spells which were buffs, or only required SR. I did this because a 14 wisdom isn't going to scare anybody. Thankfully the druid spell list is hilarious, and among my favorite thing in 3.PF. My prep'd spell consisted of things like Aspect of the Bear (+2 to trips), Liberating Command, Faerie Fire, Wind Wall, Sleet Storm, and Atavism (I considered Freedom of Movement, but honestly I felt both were just a worthy of the slot.) If I got prior warning on combat I'd buff, opening move was generally to control somehow (Faerie Fire, Wind Wall, Sleet Storm), and then trip-drop anything that wasn't controlled. My damage was pretty low (1d10+23) (Bosko added a bit more here, forget his numbers of the top of my head,) but once something dropped to the ground it wasn't getting back up, and the disparity between attack (with super flanking bonuses) and enemy AC (with the prone penalty) was just too much to deal with, and Bosko's multiple attacks really pushed the damage into 'pretty damn good' range.

Overall the experience was pretty fun. I enjoyed the class, the flavor, and felt like I was playing different than I would have as either a druid or a ranger (both of which I play often.) I was more in your face than the druid (though I usually play caster type druids,) but not afraid to step back and try to control the field some like I would be on a ranger. It's an interesting niche, and I think it worked really well because our party was only 3 people.

All I really worry about is how the class feels as its leveling. So much of it seems to just be 'take another use of some of your stuff, and keep doing what you're doing.' Leveling up, IMHO, should be about gaining options. Most of this classes levels don't really give me that feeling. You pretty much lock yourself into one playstyle, and just get better at doing your one thing. It's not as dynamic as something like a Ranger where I can switch hit, or cast some spells, or whatever else. It's certainly not liek druid where I'm constantly getting new spell levels and turning into more crazy things. It feels more like a gestalt caster // melee than an actual hybrid caster/melee.

Phantom F. Harlock III
Human (Advanced (+4 DEX, -2 STR, +2 INT, +2 WIS, +2 CHA), Advanced Dexterity, Drop Skilled)
Rogue 8

Alignment: Nuetral Good. What did law and order do for the people of Rayne? Systematize the addiction of its people to mana potions. Was it honorable combat which turned the tide in the Dragon Wars? No. It was the Wizard-King doing what needed to be done for the good of the mortal races. Good is not contingent on the rule of law, but instead on our ability to consider it clearly at each moment. A man should act with honor in his dealings with others, but the good of the mortal races comes first.

Appearance: Something like this...

Personality: Harlock is a stoic, serious man. He values loyalty and honor above all else, and will be extremely reluctant to break his promises. A mans word is the only contract which Harlock considers binding. Harlock has a soft spot for children and for those striving to make the best of situations beyond their control. Despite his otherwise serious demeanor Captain Harlock loves being dramatic.

Ten Minute Background

Part I - Core Concepts

1) Harlock was in the Special Operations Task Force, a secret group in the heirarchy of the Raynian military, for nearly 12 years. During this time he performed artifact retrieval, prisoner recovery, and a multitude of other hush-hush military missions.

2) During the Rayne border expansion wars against the native tribes in the Reaches Harlock was assigned to guard a drug cartels mana potion shipments into the region. Begrudgingly Harlock accepted his orders until he came into direct contact with the tribes and in particular their future leader, Domri. His encounters left him convinced that the actions of the government of Rayne were not in the best interest of anyone and because of this he decided he was done with them.

3) Harlock had heard leaked information about a project being worked on by the top minds of Rayne, a piece of technomancy which would change the face of warfare. Harlock and the few men who he had convinced to stand beside him infiltrated the facilities where the device was being built and, through luck and finely coordinated teamwork, reach the machine they had been working on. Harlock's team had found an airship and thanks to planning his team had worked out how to pilot it. Christening the ship Arcadia the crew and her new captain piloted the ship away and into the endless skies.

4) Harlock's crew consists of his first mate, Arstil Dawnbreaker, twin pilots Sen and Ars Lupricus, weapons officer Cyril Strong, and a host of others who have since proven themselves worthy of fighting alongside Harlock.

5) Currently Harlock is trying to find a way to make the ship immune to magical divination as well as to prying eyes below.

Part II - Goals

1) Harlocks first order of business is to retrieve Emmeralda Dawnbreaker and her daughter from custody. Following that Harlock wants to end the slave trade in Rayne, end the mana potion trade in Rayne and beyond, and help to end the colonization of Vax. And he wants to have all of that done by lunch so he can spend the afternoon getting actual work done.

2) As a player I want to see all of those story-lines happen, but I want to see the consequences of stealing super-secret technology play out.

Part III - Secrets

1) (Aware) Harlock was the mastermind behind an operation for the Raynian government which caused a great deal of civilian death ostensibly for the greater good. He is not very proud of this.

2) (Unaware) Harlock's first mate and oldest friend has been sending secret reports to the Raynian government in order to ensure that his wife and child are kept alive. This haunts Arstil each day.

Part IV - People

1) Arstil Dawnbreaker is the yang to Harlock's yin. Arstil is 29, only a year older than Harlock, and has been working with him ever since they were both brought into the SOTF all those years ago. Arstil is short, black of hair, and has an average face and slight build. His preferred weapon is a revolver which he recieved for ten years of service in the SOTF. Engraved on the gun is the skull and bones which the crew of the Arcadia have taken for their banner.

2) Sen and Ars Lupricus are a set of fraternal twins who do the bulk of the science onboard the ship. They are techmatugrical geniuses who together implemented a great deal of the principles which helped create the Arcadia. The two were initially taken as hostages but have since become crew members of the Arcadia in part because they agree with the noble (if lofty) goals of Harlock, and in part because their allegience to Rayne was never what drew them to the project in the first place. The twins are goofy, young, and love to joke around with the crew.

3) Emmeralda Dawnbreaker is the wife of Arstil. She too was a member of the Special Operations Task Force, but was assigned to a mission far removed from the recent happenings with Harlock. Because of this when Emmeralda returned she was taken as hostage along with her daughter in order to ensure that Arstil would continue to send reports on the Arcadia.

4) Cyril Strong is the crews weapons officer. He loves big guns, big booms, and groan-worthy puns. He is a staunch ally of Harlock, and mentored him when he was brought into the Special Operations Task Force. Cyril's loud, bouisterous nature can be overwhelming at first and the ease at which he transitions from leisure mode to his serious work mode can be a bit jarring. Cyril is nearing fourty years old and simply wants to live out the rest of his life sailing the endless skies with Harlock and the crew of the Arcadia.

Part V - Memories and Mannerisms

1) Harlock puts honor before reason. If he is chasing someone critical through a cemetary he would rather let them get away than trample roughshod over the graves of the fallen.

2) Harlock lost his right eye during a mission when he was twenty-two.

3) As mentioned earlier Harlock loves the dramatic and when presented with a practical and effective method of solving a problem, and a dramatic but slightly less effective method he will choose the dramatic method every time.

Howdy there! Kibeth turned me on to this game, and I notice you have a waitlist going. I'd like to turn in an app to go onto the waitlist if theres still a chance.

I have a few questions relating to a character concept I have floating around. I plan to app with a Paladin of Soleil (Warrior of the Light variant), focusing on mercy and the redemptive aspect of the Goddess.

1) What is her favored weapon? I was hoping to dip a few levels into monk and grab unarmed proficiency, play a paladin who disarms and does nonlethal damage when fighting.

2) Can I smite evil and do nonlethal damage?

3) For back story purposes: How are churches and such organized? I was hoping to play a paladin who acted as a bounty hunter, bringing in those who violate the law, and helping eliminate the corruption from those who are possessed or under the influence of evil magical items. Fundamentally he would be more Good than Lawful, but bounty hunting is a fine excuse to bring him closer to those who are suffering the most.

Thats about all I have for now. I played a paladin this one is inspired from in a campaign a while back that fell apart. He was one of my favorite characters (though partly because the DM put me in extraordinary circumstances. Neutral undead, grey and grey morality, tough decisions all around. I feel like thats the kind of world this is, which is why I think the character could fit.)

Wednesday we will begin!

Congratulations everyone! Sorry for the lack of a start date, I had a 2.5x exam grade test dumped on me friday night that is due in... 5 hours. Spent the majority of this weekend on it. I promise we will have something definite by this evening if I have to sacrifice some san points to make it happen.

Once more congrats, I cannot wait to begin!

If you get it to us quickly then thats fine.

We will be closing applications no questions asked Saturday. If you dont have EVERYTHING to us by then, it's a no.

There is no specific subculture, but if you want something regional feel free to invent it. We want to leave a wide berth for you guys to worldbuild.

As a suggestion though if you want something Germanic/Scandinavian you'll find that the northwest region is probably where you'll want to be as you have some woodlands and you start getting closer to the frozen north.

As far as settlement sizes, that is largely your decision, how wild do you want them to be? If you're talking the Norse frontier then you're probably looking at tribal communities, maybe 500 or less in the larger areas. If you are looking at something more Carolingian Empire then you may have larger settlements into the thousands.

Population distributions are going to be a little more even or not depending on the case.

Sent out some emails. Damn you spam filter for delaying my receiving of messages!!!

Anyways I'm liking the character concepts we have floating around. All I'll say is this: Do not be afraid to worldbuild. At all. Doing it, and doing it WELL really makes an application shine. Creativity is often the crux of a good party in a higher level adventure where we try to achieve the feel of the epic fantasy.

Maps? If you mean the map of Sariel then that was done in Gimp. It's like photoshop CS4 but free.

If you are interested in making maps then I highly recommend this guide from the Cartographers Guild. It'll take you through step by step. It's a powerful and very easy to understand tutorial.

If you mean some other map... Iunno. :)

And there is no edit feature.

...see know problem...

Hurr durr how me english language. See NO problem. I am bad and I apologize :)

I'll answer a few questions this time!

Do yuo guys have enough players for a game? If so, what types to you have sofar?

Right now the players who are wanting to play are:

I'm certain there are others whose post I missed, and others who have been emailing kib, but those 4 are the ones I am certain have submitted something.

Right now there is a nice mix of everything, so don't limit yourself in what you want to be, just apply away!

... Sacred Outlaw...

Seems... alright, but I can see room for it to be a little much (unless I am reading it wrong its essentially full SA progression and full channeling.) We may cut it back a little, but I otherwise see know problem.

Realized I didn't post the map.
World Map
Top to Bottom, Left to Right your countries are:

Sorcuth (everybody and their cousin)
6'th GABHE (I am now officially going to refer to it as Gabby)
Samarian Desert (not much but sand)
High Elven Kingdom (... elves)
The Wilds (here be wood elves)
Samarian Plains (here be orcs)
Tyrixx (demons, daemons)
Sea of Ashton
The Lower Regions

I'll get it properly fixed up with city names and such, and get some more physical features put on it.

Guten tag everybody! I'm Glorfinmad and I'll be co-dm'ing (mostly running NPC's, designing maps, more concrete world-buildy-things.) While Kib is off in class I will handle a few questions right now. Also I will give you my map. It's not got city names yet, but I don't want to delay getting SOMETHING to you any further. It is rough, but I hope it will suffice to get your imagination working.

...DMing experience?...

This will be Kib's first genuine attempt at DM'ing something. He's run some one off adventures and what not, but never a full out campaign.

I have been DM'ing for 5 years now, mostly 3.5e but I've run one pathfinder campaign. I'm fairly well versed in the rules though, on occasion, I do mix up my 3.5e and my PF.

For the sake of this campaign I will be handling some of the roleplay of NPC's, and all of the mapmaking and literal imaginary worldbuilding (couldn't find a proper tunr of phrase for that...)

Also: I type like I talk so I hope you will excuse my odd use of punctuation. I double check everything to make sure its readable but sometimes I just flub up something for the sake of immersion, I'm more a speaker than a writer :)

...Races?...

Ooo, the fun questions. As far as races go the standard races are always welcome. You'll find that there are quirks though for races like gnomes, halflings, and dwarves that will make you need to run them by us first. It's the same as with any other non-standard realm; your Ebberon halflings aren't the same as your Golarian halflings, and both of those are different from the Sariel halflings.

As far as Aasimar and Tieflings. Tielflings will work very well and, as pointed out above, they are already good to play. Aasimar are a little more difficult to fit in but still very possible (they will just be much more rare and will recieve a very mixed welcome (imagine walking about the streets of a Sorcuthian city.))

For other non-standard races please don't hesitate to inquire about them individually. There are always places we can fit people. Realize though that if you intend to play a centaur you will be highly limited in terms of where you come from, what organizations will welcome you, and the welcoming you recieve amongst the various nations.

As far as what would, in standard 3.5, be level advanced races... we'll work with you on that if you are looking into it. We don't really have anything concrete yet.

...Traits?...

I haven't run it by Kib yet (naughty me) but in my eyes as long as you keep the relative power level of your traits in check then we are good. Traits should amount to roughly half a feat worth of goodies, so feel free to go wild. Again, anything homebrew needs to be run by us.

If you need to get into contact with me you can reach me with questions at rgmotes@gmail.com