Apologies for my delay in posting. I'm still working on purchases, spells, et cetera from the mechanical side of things, and I still have to finish my backstory, but here is my draft thus far of my character.
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I've got a cleric of Pharasma in the works - I'll try to have something up over the weekend. I've always liked the premise of Curse of the Crimson Throne, and I'll try to catch up on the party's exploits so far.
610. Rather than distance themselves from Timothy Zahn's beloved Heir to the Empire series, Lucasfilm embraces it, creating a series of sequel movies mapping closely to the books. As a result, the Star Wars series drags on for many more movies, though many of the new films perform poorly in the box office due to convoluted plots. The Star Wars franchise becomes a cult classic, never quite reaching a worldwide level of prominence, and the sci-fi entertainment scene is dominated by television shows rather than full-length movies, with Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica entering a bitter, drawn-out arms race of sorts and leaving a trail of increasingly lower-budget sequels and spin-off series in their wake. Babylon 5's airing upsets the power divide, with fans flocking to the show's more cohesive plotline and more consistent writing, though J. Michael Stracynski adamantly refuses to continue the franchise. Firing most of their production staff, both Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica shift gears, focusing on quality over quantity in their new series. The changing culture of science fiction film heralds the revival of the Star Wars franchise under the direction of the old guard, with many of the die-hard fanbase's community leaders being consulted on the new Star Wars media. Consequently, the science-fiction entertainment industry in the States is divided by factionalism amongst the "Big Three" - Star Wars, Star Trek, and Battlestar Galactica - and is relegated to a niche entertainment field, generally seen as too inaccessible for the general public. The communities for each show have much stronger support for each of the new entries in their respective franchises, though how much of this is due to the better quality of said media and how much of this is due to fans' loyalty to the franchise remains a hot topic of debate. Rather than Star Wars serving as a pop culture emblem of the nerd subculture, Dungeons and Dragons comes to dominate the public perception to a much greater degree - the general culture's depiction of nerds generally comes through sitcom-like television series about tabletop RPGs mixed with astoundingly cheesy live-action recreations of tabletop campaigns, and spoofs like Galaxy Quest and Spaceballs poking fun at the science fiction industry are almost entirely replaced by KODT-like media about comically dysfunctional parties. When TSR sells to Wizards of the Coast, the franchise fractures, with countless new game manufacturers popping up, and Dungeons and Dragons never reaches the same levels of global dominance, though Call of Cthulhu remains big in Japan. Instead, more people branch out into other gaming systems, and much like the average person is expected to know a bit about Star Wars in the modern era, the average person in the alternate timeline is expected to have limited experience with at least three different tabletop fantasy RPG systems.
Is it average Wealth by Level for 5th-level characters (10500 GP, I believe), average HP, etc, or should we roll?
This campaign seems interesting - I've always loved the Dragonlance books. If recruitment's still up, I may try and make a ranger.
I've always wanted to play in one of these campaigns, and fortunately for me, my schedule's cleared up enough that I can handle another campaign. I have a rogue partially completed - I'll submit it soon.
I'm not much of a GM - the only campaign I ran on the boards died pretty quickly. No disrespect to you, Azure_Zero, but I think I'd like to withdraw from this project - as I said earlier, Zeldrith was originally written up for Return of the Runelords, and I think I'd prefer to keep modifying him for said campaign.
The way I was reading the module, all the giant camps at area A2 were meant to convey that taking the fortress head-on would be a suicidally stupid idea - the module almost forces players to find alternate ways in (calculating the entirety of the Jorgenfist camps, it comes out to a total CR of around 22 - enough to theoretically defeat some of the weaker Spawn of Rovagug), and if you do choose to include stone giant traditionalists working with the people of Sandpoint, they could easily tell the PCs about the entrance at A4. As for the killing-en-masse part, it mentions in the module that Mokmurian has forbid the rank-and-file stone giants from entering the boundaries of Jorgenfist, for fear that they would desert if they knew of the depravities that go on therein. Thus, it follows that all the giants encountered within the fortress - that is, all the giants that the players are meant to directly fight - are members of his inner circle to some extent, and thus are complicit to a greater degree than those outside (the giants in the camps are ex-slaves being manipulated by their former overlords, and if the players follow the module as written, they won't kill any of them, while the giants inside the fortress are by and large collaborators with said overlords, with the exception of Conna and Galenmir if you choose to have either of them side with the PCs). If all goes well, the players won't actually kill any giants except for the evil ones - as mentioned before, only one or two of the giants in Jorgenfist itself could reasonably be considered innocent, and the raid on Sandpoint turns into a rout as soon as either Teraktinus or Longtooth - both high-priority targets and both irredeemably evil - are slain. This also solves the problem of the cannibalism. Area B5 is a minor part of the module at best, and if you don't want to remove it entirely, you could just present it as the excesses of Karzoug's disciples rather than an integral part of the culture of the stone giants - that was how I had initially read the module in any case. As far as my earlier mention of Magnimar, I realize now that it was poorly worded. All I meant to say is that Karzoug's disciples are to the stone giants what the Skinsaw Cult was to Magnimar - cultist groups turning away from the cultural norms of their society and into depravity.
I'm admittedly a little daunted by Book Four, which makes some choices with coding that are going to be hard to dial back without a complete rewrite. Book 4 is Fortress of the Stone Giants, right? I might be misreading it, but I'm not really seeing how it has harmful coding any more than the Skinsaw Cult is harmful coding against Magnimarans. Bear in mind, the stone giants gathered at Jorgenfist are not exactly representative of the stone giants of the Storval Plateau as a whole - they're violent iconoclasts, acting out against the traditions of the stone giants, and the book states that most of the stone giants find even the name Jorgenfist, which is their name for the fortress that guards the afterlife, blasphemous. That easily lends itself to a similar treatment to what you gave the Thistletop goblins. Furthermore, the violent departure from the stone giants' culture would draw the ire of deities like Minderhal - while he is evil, the actions of Mokmurian and his iconoclasts would be completely anathema to him, and I can easily picture stone giant clerics of Minderhal arriving at Sandpoint after the attack to help rebuild and provide some of the information the captive giants could (obviously, with more of an 'impetuous child' outlook on Mokmurian rather than the 'visionary leader' viewpoint his own followers have). Similarly, a few of the named stone giants (most notably Galenmir and Conna) are neutral rather than evil and rankle at some of their ruler's decisions, and of the stone giant tribes gathered under Mokmurian's banner, the Valissgander and Kavarvatti tribes are noted to chafe under their evil leaders, the Crannoch tribe's leader is nonevil, and the Jormunsir tribe is implied to be Minderhalites (which as mentioned before would mean revulsion with Mokmurian's chaotic ways) - fertile ground for the PCs to turn them against their overlord. In the Concluding the Adventure section, it also mentions that most of the Jorgenfist giants are nonevil and that once Mokmurian is dead, they return to their tribes, seeking forgiveness from their elders.
I've always wanted to play through Reign of Winter, and I have a number of 2E characters I feared would never see the light of day. I am certainly interested, and will be watching with anticipation.
I had an idea for a similar concept to some others expressed here - an chirurgeon/bard, a buffing/healing character in combat who can hold his own in social situations (and whose bombs deal positive energy damage to the undead, thanks to the healing bomb discovery). I'll work more on the crunch and backstory, but his campaign trait will be Teacher's Pet - he's a former student of Lorrimor's (from Sincomakti, rather than Lepidstadt, but why break up the current party makeup of tieflings in academia?) who was waylaid on his way to Professor Lorrimor's funeral.
A new philosophy has gained traction in recent years - rather than adopting a holistic approach to life, practitioners pick and choose what elements of existing philosophies they wish to believe or disbelieve. We now have philosophy "à la Cartesianism."
The entirety of the Flatland school district was excited to meet the new transfer student, a Calabi-Yau manifold. The new arrival quickly developed a reputation as an attentive learner and a genius student... until the first test, where he received the lowest score in the grade. One of the teachers, a square, commented on this to the principal, a pentagon. "I was surprised at our newest student's test score - I had always thought of him as a bright pupil." After a moment's contemplation, the principal replied. "But of course - he seems complex, but when you get right down to it, he's only a p-brane!"
I am distinctly interested. My current character concept was an aasimar bard of some sort - an operatic tenor who would fill the traditional bard role of face in social situations and support in combat situations. I'll try to get a character made as soon as possible.
I have most of my character's crunch and backstory done, but will be unable to post it until Thursday. Apologies for any inconvenience this may cause.
I am certainly interested. I will have limited internet access until the 22nd, but I will try to make a character as soon as I can. = 13
Stat array seems quite good. I may try an alchemist character - perhaps a crypt breaker serving as the party rogue?
I am undoubtedly interested - Star Wars was one of my favorite movies as a child, and I frequently read the associated Expanded Universe novels even as an adult. I have many of the Saga edition books, as well as the older edition, though I have never played the Saga edition. My current character concept is a Rodian soldier. Basic backstory is that he is a former member of his homeworld's planetary defense forces who resigned his commission following the fall of the Galactic Republic. He joined a shipping company as a mechanic, but at the start of the campaign, the ship he served on, a decrepit Ghtroc 720 freighter known as the Horizon Glory, has been impounded at Sel Zonn under suspicion of smuggling arms to insurgents. I will try to get a full profile up shortly.
I have nothing against the alignment system myself, but I honestly feel that the new edict-anathema system will be more conducive to the roleplaying focus Paizo seems to have. Some of the players I have met take a philosophical view of their characters' moral code, exploring what it means to have any particular alignment, but unfortunately, many I have played with have seen alignment as just a two-letter code on their character sheets, acting however they like without considering how their actions tie into their stated alignment. To some degree, the new system reminds me of the allegiances system from D20 Modern - rather than being lumped into broad categories, players select a specific list of values, giving characters clearer motivations and helping to distinguish them. For instance, an Iomedaean paladin whose actions are guided by a targeted dedication to the philosophical values of law and good will naturally behave differently from an Eagle Knight who does good deeds because of her dedication to her organization's ideals, even though both would have been filed under "LG" in the alignment system - the former is Lawful Good by intention, while the latter is Lawful Good as a necessary but unintended consequence of her moral beliefs.
I'll definitely make up a submission soon. I was thinking I might make an aquachymist alchemist, as the archetype seems to fit your requirements well - the character will be able to easily deal with underwater matters, but won't be able to simply bypass them.
I think that many of the creatures that exist in the various Bestiaries seem like they are designed to lay the groundwork for later player ancestries - for instance, of the five ancestries introduced in the recent Impossible Lands book, four (ghoran, nagaji, vanara, vishkanya) had existed as low-level NPCs since the Bestiary 3. I highly suspect that the upcoming round of Tian Xia books will bring at least the non-implemented Tian Xia ancestries from 1E - the samsaran and the wayang, most prominently - and will likely include the kovintus in some capacity relating to the elemental focus that will underlie the 2023-2024 books. Moving away from the upcoming year, other NPC ancestries from the Bestiaries that seem likely to be implemented are the stheno, gathlain, and wyrwood, though not likely in the Tian Xia books.
As far as content goes (and given Paizo's track record of making video games of its most popular APs), I suspect that the inclusion of Fists of the Ruby Phoenix is at least a possibility in some sort of expansion content - it's a higher-level campaign somewhat shorter than most of the other APs, and it can be fairly easily grafted onto an existing storyline. Additionally, many of its encounters resemble video game traditions to some extent already (as far as I can tell, the average AP villain wouldn't split their "boss key" into fragments and give them to appropriately thematic "mini-bosses"), and reading through it, I'm only seeing one encounter - the vertical Challenge of Falling Stars - that would be difficult to implement in an isometric game like the existing Pathfinder games.
Fascinating... An in-universe explanation for the Pathfinder comics!
I'll roll up stats, though it seems that I may be too late.
I'm definitely interested! I may roll up a caster soon.
Final loadout appears to be 15, 15, 14, 13, 12, 8. A 22 point build is slightly below average, but should easily be workable.
I'm definitely interested! I await the reveal of the various adjustments with anticipation!
As the sun sinks lower in the sky, the unlikely band of heroes approaches the old fishery building - though "building" may be the wrong word for the decrepit amalgam of rotting planks that awaits you near the end of Westpier 17. As the disguised Ematti approaches, a middle-aged man in the somewhat tattered clothes of a struggling merchant is staggering under the weight of a number of barrels that reek of days-old fish, which he deposits in front of the fishery. A few minutes after he leaves, a heavily scarred half-orc exits the fishery, accompanied by a human dressed in faded clothes considered fashionable several decades ago.
Kane:
You recognize the human as the aforementioned Yargin, but the half-orc is unfamiliar to you. Ematti:
The half-orc is Giggles, Gaedren's most loyal thug, and you believe the human to be Yargin Balko, though you rarely saw him except from a distance. You do not see any other lookouts, however.
As you watch, the half-orc carries the barrels into the fishery, while the human makes notes on a piece of paper he carries with him. DC 10 Perception: The human mutters under his breath as he writes, but his muttering is of no significance - he appears to be tallying up sums and making a record of the delivery. The half-orc, on the other hand, emits a rather profuse but unimaginative stream of profanity, punctuated by insane giggling, as he hefts the barrels.
Ematti:
You remember that most of Gaedren's enslaved orphans are on "street duty," otherwise known as pickpocketing and petty thievery, during the day, with only a few out-of-favor children working at Lamm's latest disreputable front business. You recall several guards (including Kane), but only two who Gaedren trusted to any degree - a half-orc named Giggles who laughs like a madman at all times, and someone named "Hookshanks" who you've never met but is apparently another one of Gaedren's most loyal minions. At night, the children are generally asleep, but Gaedren's thugs generally patrol, checking for threats to their employer, and ill-tempered guard dogs are often set loose. The map that Zellara provided indicates that Westpier 17 is approximately an hour's travel away, and your fortuitous meeting was fairly early in the day, so you could easily perform reconnaissance and still attack during the day if you so choose.
Fortunately, some of my relatives live in an area with power and whatnot, and since my work's been limited while the issue is resolved, I can likely continue posting.
Ematti:
The back of the house abuts part of a maze of alleyways that leads further into Midland, if an escape route is needed. Marcus:
The back door is unlocked, and you enter the house without any complications.
Quick notice to all those chosen that the gameplay thread has been created.
After reviewing the many amazing applications, I have made my selection. The five members of the party are as follows: The paladin Lucian Tomescu, played by FangDragon. The gunslinger Kane Hue, played by DoubleGold. The rogue Marcus Nocturnus, played by Ironperenti. The diviner Nicolai Fortescu, played by Vanulf Wulfson. The oracle Ematti, played by ZetaGilgamesh. All of the submissions were spectacular, making my decision process rather difficult (though I have no complaints about having to decide between so many amazing, high-quality characters), but I feel the above characters demonstrated particularly engaging, innovative backstories and inventive character builds which stood out from the other great examples presented thus far. If the players are okay with it, I hope to start gameplay on the 19th. Congratulations to everyone who submitted a character!
Recruitment is now closed! Thanks to everyone who submitted a character, and the sheer quantity of high-quality submissions ensures this will be a difficult decision. Again, apologies for the longer submission period - I hope nobody has become bored with the campaign. I will post selections later today, but I also plan to DM the selected players to confirm their participation in the campaign.
I would like to reiterate that the error lies with me and my inexperience as a PbP gamemaster, rather than any lack of sufficient material for character submissions - every character presented to date has been of exceptional quality.
Taking into account the advice presented above, I fear that I may have extended the recruitment period too long and will try to keep it to the recommended two weeks for future games. There's not a lot I can do about it at this point, as we are almost at the end of the recruitment period, but I plan to end the recruitment early - on the 18th rather than the 19th as I had originally anticipated. I am willing to hold off if I receive a request by anyone planning a last-minute submission, but otherwise, I plan to close recruitment the morning of the 18th and choose players by the end of the day, hopefully starting play on the 19th.
At this point we are just chilling, waiting to see how things develop. Agreed. All the characters submitted thus far have been of astounding quality, but there has been relatively little activity in some time. I was considering shortening the recruitment period by one week for future games, but I wanted to check with some of the more experienced posters before I do so - would three weeks be better, or is four weeks the standard recruitment period?
Heavily interested. just wondering for starting wealth wise, roll, average or max. Or is it some other number. Don't want to assume. Thanks for your question! As I mentioned earlier, I neglected to include the starting wealth information in the original post, but I will accept either the average starting wealth or your roll if it's higher.
Tongue and cheek comment, ignore me, i’m a smart aleck No, it's my fault. I was delving into a rules discussion well outside of the relevant sections of the messageboards.
Curveballs aplenty Apologies, I'll stay on topic.
There are just as many Witch, Cleric and Investigator applicants as Brawler applicants . . .. Apologies, you make a fair point. My statement wasn't meant to offend anyone, it's just that there are several media characters I can see as archetypical examples of these various classes, i.e. Sherlock Holmes or Hercule Poirot for the Investigator, whereas the bald mechanic from Raiders of the Lost Ark is the only one to come to mind for the brawler class.
There are litterally [sic] CR 1/3 creatures (looking at you "Orc common") that hit for 2d4+4 damage, have 20ish effective HP, ABs of +5 to +7 including charge boni and also have both melee and ranged options, the ranged option still hitting for d6+3.After rereading my post, I realize that given the fact that my character submission is a perfect example of the low-HP wizard I just mentioned, I'm probably not one to talk.Yep, that way I can try to kill you from the very start.That's a feature of 2E and Starfinder I rather liked and am glad to see recreated in 1E. By giving a one-time boost to HP, it allows the GM to introduce genuinely challenging and engaging low-level combat without having to constantly worry about TPKs because the wizard who took Con as his dump stat (aka the 1-Hit-Point Wonder) sneezed wrong or some such. Agreed. I'm not saying the one-time HP boost is a bad idea - quite the opposite, in fact - merely that it's a feature of Paizo's other products I'm glad to see recreated here. While the various D&D editions tend to feature combat-heavy rule systems that break down at higher levels (especially 4E and 5E, as well as the "One D&D" playtest material), I think the primary weakness of 1E combat was a somewhat unstable early-game where the GM has to handle encounters carefully to avoid depleting the party's meager reserves of HP (in the provided example, with a +5 to hit and 1d6+3 damage [average to-hit roll of 15.5, average damage roll of 6.5], the given CR 1/3 creature has a slightly better than 50% chance of incapacitating the party wizard [most wizard characters I've seen have had a Dex around 14 or 15 and have no Con bonuses, so assuming max HP at 1st level, AC 12 with 6 HP] in the first round), but I think Paizo has done an admirable job at resolving the issue in later editions and supplementary products and the like.
Also, there seem to be quite a few brawlers up for submission, so I would be remiss if I did not include the brawler theme music.
I will try to have selections made by the end of the day on the 19th, but given the astounding quality of all the characters submitted thus far, I may push it back to the end of the day on the 20th. I plan to start by the 25th, giving the selected players some time to get into their characters and get to know each other and whatnot, but it looks like most people are already doing that, so if I get the go-ahead from the five selected players, I may skip that step and just start on the 20th (or 21st, if it takes a while to decide).
I should probably introduce myself as well. I've loved fantasy as long as I can remember - my favorite books as a child were Tolkien's Lord of the Rings series - and I quickly took to D&D 3.5E. I eventually moved to Pathfinder 1E, then Starfinder and 2E when they were released. So far, I have not regretted it, nor does it appear I ever will regret switching game systems - while I think some of the D&D campaign settings have a degree of merit lore-wise (especially Eberron), I feel that overall, Pathfinder systems are better-designed and are far more roleplay-focused than D&D's various editions are. I absolutely love creating characters and becoming engaged with the campaigns I play in (often to my detriment - I once spent a spectacularly unproductive five hours researching medieval economic theory for the sake of one dwarven shopkeeper my players promptly ignored), and I've been astounded by the high quality of the characters and players present on these forums (especially compared to my normal group, who are the sort who made "murderhobo" into a verb).
I'm definitely interested, and I have an old character I made for just such a campaign. I'll have him posted shortly.
With one week left for recruitment, it's time for an update to the submission list. Melee/Front-line:
Ranged/Martial Support:
Skill/Support:
Divine Caster/Healer:
Arcane Caster:
Yep, that way I can try to kill you from the very start.That's a feature of 2E and Starfinder I rather liked and am glad to see recreated in 1E. By giving a one-time boost to HP, it allows the GM to introduce genuinely challenging and engaging low-level combat without having to constantly worry about TPKs because the wizard who took Con as his dump stat (aka the 1-Hit-Point Wonder) sneezed wrong or some such. After rereading my post, I realize that given the fact that my character submission is a perfect example of the low-HP wizard I just mentioned, I'm probably not one to talk.
Yep, that way I can try to kill you from the very start. That's a feature of 2E and Starfinder I rather liked and am glad to see recreated in 1E. By giving a one-time boost to HP, it allows the GM to introduce genuinely challenging and engaging low-level combat without having to constantly worry about TPKs because the wizard who took Con as his dump stat (aka the 1-Hit-Point Wonder) sneezed wrong or some such.
I'm quite excited to see Paizo publishing more high-level APs. One of the primary critiques I often see leveled against D&D 5E and most of the other prominent fantasy systems is that they all break down at higher levels, that combat loses most of its appeal as players and monsters both undergo power creep, with combats dragging on due to an abundance of useless abilities or being cut suddenly and anticlimactically short by an overpowered feat combo. High-level APs, like Fists of the Ruby Phoenix or the upcoming Stolen Fate, demonstrate a major draw of PF2E - that high-level play works (seen in this demonstration and analysis).
Apologies for my earlier errors. A revised version of the previous list is below. Melee/Front-line:
Ranged/Martial Support:
Skill/Support:
Divine Caster/Healer:
Arcane Caster:
I'm Nicolai's player, not FangDragon. Sorry, I must have misread something.
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