A couple years back there was a different WoT game on the boards run by you, but you weren't feeling it so you cancelled it. I was thinking of rebuilding the White Ajah that I had there.
hmmmmm.... i dont remember that character, so youll have to help me out.
Here is the former alias. I could easily go in a different direction if the team is already loaded with channelers.
I did the math and I would have a level 10 character with 22 hit points.
That's why I'm suggesting dumping STR or CHA
Sorry to be contrarian, I just tend to have a concept in mind as I'm building a character and I simply don't have a concept right now that supports a noodle-armed weakling or a maladaptive a*~*!!$. :/
whats your concept? let's see what youre thinking.
A couple years back there was a different WoT game on the boards run by you, but you weren't feeling it so you cancelled it. I was thinking of rebuilding the White Ajah that I had there.
I did the math and I would have a level 10 character with 22 hit points.
That's why I'm suggesting dumping STR or CHA
Sorry to be contrarian, I just tend to have a concept in mind as I'm building a character and I simply don't have a concept right now that supports a noodle-armed weakling or a maladaptive a@+!!!@. :/
Is Undermountain simply the most famous dungeon in the Forgotten Realms, or is it the focal point of this adventure story?
If the former, the players might leave any time and go elsewhere and do other FR things.
If the latter, then the point of running the game is to "experience Undermountain," which means that there should be some reason that the characters are in there for the long haul: They are trying to rescue someone, looking for a lost artifact, want to meet Halaster and wrest magical secrets from him, hope to become famous specifically for exploring Undermountain, etc.
The "old school dungeon crawl" aspect of Undermountain has no fixed story. PCs enter the dungeon, the fight stuff, they wrest treasure from its depths, they return to the Yawning Portal to celebrate their victories and mourn their losses. In that kind of adventure you may want to just award xp when the PCs return to the surface.
If you want there to be story beats, then you need to figure out:
* Why are the PCs in here?
* Who or what is preventing them from achieving their goal in the dungeon?
* What is the series of challenges that they must overcome to reach their goal?
Then, the breakpoints of those challenges become the chapters of your story. You award xp for hitting one of those milestones, and introduce the next big challenge.
An early challenge might be as simple as "find a way down to level 3 so that you can reach <secret destination>." This means the PCs have a clear goal (find stairs/chutes/pits down!) and a clear completion state (we reached <secret destination>). Once they do it, you award a bunch of xp, folks level up, and you introduce the next phase of the expedition.
The goals might be personal (the PCs decided "we are working together to get rich by going as deep as we can and getting as much loot as we can") or external (the PCs are pursuing a group of kidnappers who escaped into the dungeon and took several people with them, and the initial goal is to rescue the hostages, then figure out why they were taken and who's behind it all).
After playing several KMs and running it a couple times, I suggest:
If your players care about kingdom management and you intend to actually do the military mass combat in the late game, then you should have a break of six months or a year in between each AP. While the APs are built to kinda transition seamlessly and to let players stroll around handling stuff in whatever order they want, giving them solid breakpoints to work on the kingdom without time pressure for a while is a useful way to let the kingdom spread and grow so that they're able to actually raise a meaningful army to fight Pitax.
Source: When running my PCs kept speedrunning adventure challenges and never developed the kingdom enough, so when they wound up in the War of the River Kingdoms, they were unable to field any sort of army. Had to do some tap-dancing to give them breathing room for a meaningful build-up.
Hmm, interesting idea, I hadn't thought about the technologist and technomancy spells. Could be interesting...
I wouldn't multi-class though, straight arcanist all the way if I go that route.
Yeah, the Technomancer is really tailor-made for Iron Gods, where all of its class abilities shine. In this AP it probably isn't worth the price of admission.
If you take the Technologist feat at some point, then at level 7 you could take Craft Technological Arms and Armor and, if we can buy or steal a manufacturing workshop from Numeria and, say, move it into a warehouse in Westcrown, you can start turning out nonsense like a laser pistol or plasmathrower. That's assuming our DM wants to deal with that kind of stuff, though.
1.) Faithe: Fetchling Oracle of Bones loosely modeled after Lady Death
2.) Lidyan: human arcanist with the fanciful idea of creating "magi-tech" via magical engineering.
3.) Fauniel: practicing dhampir mesmerist
I was leaning strongly towards Lidyan but I don't really want to step on anyone's thing since we already have an wizard, eventual oracle in the game. She would be a straight class as opposed to multi class so that would make a difference.
If you go with the oracle you will probably have no trouble with a niche (as noted above).
The arcanist could be very distinct if you take the Technologist feat and lean into technomancy like the Technic League wizards of Numeria. You could even take later feats for cybernetic implants and go full Thundarr the Barbarian, if you wanted to. There are a few interesting technomancy spells for doing stuff with radiation and unusual devices. The technomancer prestige class can also be a cool direction with that, though you'd be feat-starved as you'd need Technologist AND Skill Focus: Engineering, and then also want Favored Prestige Class and Prestigious Spellcaster to offset the loss of a caster level. Since this isn't Iron Gods, though, you might not get as much benefit from that PrC, as we won't be running into timeworn tech artifacts and robots. Still, if we can find a manufacturing facility (or visit or purchase one), you could dabble in cyberware or pharmaceuticals, or even make laser guns, without even having to take the PrC.
I think that the Graey Paladin would be really useful givenw hat everyone else seems to be gravitating towards but I agree taht it might be a bit of a stretch.
The skinwalker could be really interesting, I've never seen one of those used before.
The gray paladin is fun b/c of the tension of "No really I'm a good person, buuut I hang out with a bunch of sketchy folks and sometimes they do shady things." It creates interesting drama. The character is also a tiefling in Westcrown, which comes with its own foibles.
The skinwalker's main thing is that he can swim and breathe water and bite people like a shark. While rangers are usually skirmish fighters, you can build one that does weapon-and-shield and get a pretty good AC. The skirmisher archetype replaces spells with some special combat tricks. It's fun if you are doing a lot of water-based gameplay, less so if the entire AP happens on land. Westcrown is a port city so I figure there might(?) be a chance at doing stuff on a ship, but except for APs that are specially made for it (like Skull & Shackles), most adventures only dip their toes in the water, so to speak, because underwater movement and combat is so challenging for a typical unprepared party.
Also, this character is way less sociable than the paladin, which could be a liability for an adventure that relies on a lot of social skills.
1.) Faithe: Fetchling Oracle of Bones loosely modeled after Lady Death
2.) Lidyan: human arcanist with the fanciful idea of creating "magi-tech" via magical engineering.
3.) Fauniel: practicing dhampir mesmerist
I was leaning strongly towards Lidyan but I don't really want to step on anyone's thing since we already have an wizard, eventual oracle in the game. She would be a straight class as opposed to multi class so that would make a difference.
Well, the other oracle isn't going to go too deep. With a Charisma of 13 that character won't be able to use oracle spells above 3rd level. A single-classed oracle with a different niche should have no trouble.
1. Kalindrah Keyes: Female tiefling (pitborn) paladin (gray paladin). Heavy armor frontliner who tries to live up to the paladin ideal but kinda stretches it a little. A follower of Ragathiel; like her patron, attempts to rise above her fiendish heritage.
2. Bryce Hawthorne: Male human magus (mind blade). A man of few words who relies on his psychic talents to manipulate and, if necessary, fight. (Thanks to using psychic casting, can get into pretty heavy armor without worrying about spell failure.)
3. Tanjona the Islander: Male skinwalker (seascarred) ranger (freebooter, skirmisher). Originally from the Shackles, in Westcrown for a while since arriving by ship. At home in the ocean, but still a mean hand on land, where he relies on heavier weapons and armor than most rangers. Basically a pirate who can frontline in heavy armor (when you can breathe water, you don't have to worry about armor while swimming).
I have a tiefling gray paladin sitting around but not sure it's the right character for this AP. Vigilantes are interesting but hard to do effectively. Brawlers (which I mentioned considering before) have the problem of being light armor fighters, so they are really more strikers like a monk, otherwise I would probably do one of those and make the character a scruffy ne'er-do-well to fit with the rogue motif. The brawling blademaster archetype for the samurai would sorta work, but what the hell is such a character doing in Westcrown? Gotta keep chewing on this.
It's rough because the PF adventure structure typically requires someone in the team to have high hit points and damage mitigation, but those roles also don't tend to fit in with the "clever and charismatic rogues and mountebanks"-type groups that the AP suggests.
Yeah, just ruminatin'. I was thinking of playing a big bruiser type character and realizing that PF, much like D&D, doesn't really support large creatures as PCs.
Hmm. Dunno. May need to do the big beefy damage-absorber/dealer, given the characters so far. Possibly a magus, maybe a brawler.
Regarding challenging scenes, no particular barriers, though remember that stuff that's spoilered can still be found by someone searching your account online, while stuff in PMs can't be.
Ah, I forgot that the wacky class I had in mind uses a kind of card-deck mechanic that would be excruciating to do in play-by-post, so, on to another idea!
Ooh, I already thought of something terrible to do class-wise.
Terrible class idea:
Was thinking of building a swordsage from the 3.5e Book of Nine Swords. There is no Pathfinder equivalent to this. It is kinda nutty but in PF terms it's underpowered. I was just thinking that the flavor might be entertaining.
Heya. Was the intent here to start a new game of Council of Thieves using the same characters from a former group, or just to nab the same players and create a whole new team?
I'm a technological cave-man, I know the name Discord but have no idea what you can do with it. What kinds of things could you set up on it for this game?
Discord is mostly a chat server, though it has some limited functionality for adding forums. Basically you can host a set of chat channels so that people can talk about whatever, whenever. You can pin specific posts so they can always be found later, or create threads so that specific topics don't wind up disrupting the flow of other chit-chat.
According to the encumbrance rules, Ounce is encumbered if she carries all her gear. She is d4 Strength, so can only carry 20 lb before she is encumbered. Her Survival kit weighs 20 lb while her other gear is less than 20. So if we are traveling with a vehicle, she can keep the survival pack in the vehicle. If we are without a vehicle, she'll need someone with some encumbrance to spare to carry her kit.
If this is a problem, I can adjust her strength up to d6 but that will mean dropping something, which would likely be either agility or smarts, with resultant shuffling of skill points. I'd rather keep the Strength at d4 since she has no general need for higher strength as she will not be making melee attacks or throwing things.
If you're using the savaged.us site for character creation, there should be a checkbox for "drop pack in combat" under your survival pack, so that when it computes your combat stats it doesn't count the weight of the pack.
I might have to re-work some of Ah-Rekhmire to better fit into this game. That or cut a new PC from roughly the same cloth...perhaps not a mummy from ancient Egypt, but an occultist or mystic from a more modern period to fit the game better.
Since one of the defining features of Rifts is that it's an interdimensional nexus and creatures come from everywhere to Earth, you could just rework him as from some kind of Egypt-like desert planet, a humanlike alien or a descendant of humans that were captured and taken elsewhere long ago, like in Stargate.
So build the Novice and then add 9 advancements, wow.
Seems like we could make use of a Flying Titan in this group.
Like a GIFTED Flying Titan who can fly without his armor too!
Just a thought.
What do you guys think you need the most?
From looking, it is NOT Telekinesis ...
Looks like nobody has any significant social skills. Jingμ has Persuasion d4 and Burgurk is running on default. Barbara (if she is picked to join) is only running d6 (+1 to a subset of the population), with a small bonus when interacting with human settlers who respect the legend of the Glitter Boys.
@Jesse- I enjoy the concept and the group could definitely use the firepower of an RG-14 Boomgun added to their mix. Advance her to Veteran and you’ll be in business.
Advance to veteran:
Barbara "Barbie" Lance
Veteran Human Female (9 advances) Glitter Girl
Smarts: d6
Battle d6
Common Knowledge d4
Electronics d6
Language: American (native) d8
Notice d6
Repair d6
Survival d6
Spirit: d8
Intimidation d6
Persuasion d6+1
Strength: d6
Vigor: d10
Edges: Attractive, Brave, Combat Reflexes, Dodge, Martial Artist, Power Armor Jock, Soldier
Hindrances: Driven (minor): Free humanity from the shackles of tyrants, Heroic (major), Loyal (minor)
Advance List
1 - Increase Vigor by one die type (d8 -> d10)
2 - Gain New Edge: Brave
3 - Increase two skills that are lower than their linked attributes by one die each: Piloting d6 -> d8, Shooting d6 -> d8
-- SEASONED --
4 - Increase Agility by one die type (d8 -> d10)
5 - Increase two skills that are lower than their linked attributes by one die each: Piloting d8 -> d10, Shooting d8 -> d10
6 - Increase two skills that are lower than their linked attributes by one die each: Athletics d4 -> d6, Fighting d6 -> d8
7 - Gain New Edge: Combat Reflexes
-- VETERAN --
8 - Increase Spirit by one die type (d6 -> d8)
9 - Gain New Edge: Dodge
Random Starting Tables
Training: Roll 4: Martial Artist edge
Cybernetics: Roll 15: Synthetic Organ Replacement (+1 Vigor die)
Gear
NG-52 survival pack
Wooden cross
USA G-10 Glitter Boy Armor
Mark II Battlefield Light EBA
Survival Knife
Vibro-knife
Wooden stake
Wilk's 320 laser pistol
$1,400
Description: Blonde-haired and sleek, Barbie has the fitness of a soldier and the confidence of a professional. She has sharp blue eyes and a ready smile (with all of her teeth, in fact!).
Background: Barbie is originally from the remains of Boston, a nominally Coalition territory. From a young age she lived the usual scavenging-and-grifting life of the uneducated commoner in the territory of the CS. Barbie practiced survival and hunting the woods around Boston, learning the ways of the wilderness, at least enough to help the family to survive.
Into this difficult life came turmoil when a small flotilla of trade ships landed at the harbor. Though several were nothing more than the merchants that they appeared to be, some carried undercover operatives, others a carnival and some exiles from other lands seeking refuge elsewhere. Among those travelers was Malachi Diggs, a Glitter Boy pilot.
Malachi hid his Glitter Boy armor among the trappings of the traveling coastal carnival. The carnies used their skills to hide under the noses of the Coalition; though often persecuted, they survived and evaded suspicion by the pretense of being harmless and eccentric entertainers. So it was that Barbie, enchanted by the carnival coming to town, crossed paths with Malachi.
It was simple bad luck that a Coalition squad decided that day that they would make an example of the "freaks and D-Bees" in the carnival. Of course, Malachi could not let that stand; he and the other defenders in the carnival put up a fight. The Coalition troops, upon spotting the Glitter Boy, knew that they were outmatched and quickly retreated while calling for backup. The carnival had no choice but to put out to water again in a hurry—and Barbara was aboard ship when that happened.
Returning to Boston was impossible, even as the Coalition organized for a retaliatory punishment strike against the settlers along the coast. Though Barbara was distraught over the loss of her family, she was taken under the wing of the carnies and trained as an apprentice to Malachi.
Over many years the pair had a variety of adventures. Barbie was badly injured during a firefight, necessitating the replacement of several of her internal organs. Malachi, unfortunately, did not survive, but he bequeathed his armor to his squire, his last words being simply: "Be better than I was."
Thanks to Malachi's training and the experiences with the traveling caravan, Barbie learned how to read, how to fit in with mundane travelers, and most importantly of all, about the mission of the Tomorrow Legion. Now she plans to use her inheritance to make the world a better place as a trained Glitter Girl.
As far as team dynamics, while the character definitely leans heavily into the heroic identity of the legendary Glitter Boys, I don't intend to necessarily drag the team around by her hindrances. It might just lead to some heated discussions about priorities.
I'm not the kind of player who tries to play the invincible soldier who never gets out of the power armor. This character has a life outside of the power armor and frequently does "normal people stuff."
Smarts: d6
Battle d6
Common Knowledge d4
Electronics d6
Language: American (native) d8
Notice d6
Repair d6
Survival d6
Spirit: d6
Intimidation d6
Persuasion d6+1
Strength: d6
Vigor: d10
Edges: Attractive, Brave, Martial Artist, Power Armor Jock, Soldier
Hindrances: Driven (minor): Free humanity from the shackles of tyrants, Heroic (major), Loyal (minor)
Advance List
1 - Increase Vigor by one die type (d8 -> d10)
2 - Gain New Edge: Brave
3 - Increase two skills that are lower than their linked attributes by one die each: Piloting d6 -> d8, Shooting d6 -> d8
-- SEASONED --
4 - Increase Agility by one die type (d8 -> d10)
Random Starting Tables
Training: Roll 4: Martial Artist edge
Cybernetics: Roll 15: Synthetic Organ Replacement (+1 Vigor die)
Gear
NG-52 survival pack
Wooden cross
USA G-10 Glitter Boy Armor
Mark II Battlefield Light EBA
Survival Knife
Vibro-knife
Wooden stake
Wilk's 320 laser pistol
$1,400
Description: Blonde-haired and sleek, Barbie has the fitness of a soldier and the confidence of a professional. She has sharp blue eyes and a ready smile (with all of her teeth, in fact!).
Background: Barbie is originally from the remains of Boston, a nominally Coalition territory. From a young age she lived the usual scavenging-and-grifting life of the uneducated commoner in the territory of the CS. Barbie practiced survival and hunting the woods around Boston, learning the ways of the wilderness, at least enough to help the family to survive.
Into this difficult life came turmoil when a small flotilla of trade ships landed at the harbor. Though several were nothing more than the merchants that they appeared to be, some carried undercover operatives, others a carnival and some exiles from other lands seeking refuge elsewhere. Among those travelers was Malachi Diggs, a Glitter Boy pilot.
Malachi hid his Glitter Boy armor among the trappings of the traveling coastal carnival. The carnies used their skills to hide under the noses of the Coalition; though often persecuted, they survived and evaded suspicion by the pretense of being harmless and eccentric entertainers. So it was that Barbie, enchanted by the carnival coming to town, crossed paths with Malachi.
It was simple bad luck that a Coalition squad decided that day that they would make an example of the "freaks and D-Bees" in the carnival. Of course, Malachi could not let that stand; he and the other defenders in the carnival put up a fight. The Coalition troops, upon spotting the Glitter Boy, knew that they were outmatched and quickly retreated while calling for backup. The carnival had no choice but to put out to water again in a hurry—and Barbara was aboard ship when that happened.
Returning to Boston was impossible, even as the Coalition organized for a retaliatory punishment strike against the settlers along the coast. Though Barbara was distraught over the loss of her family, she was taken under the wing of the carnies and trained as an apprentice to Malachi.
Over many years the pair had a variety of adventures. Barbie was badly injured during a firefight, necessitating the replacement of several of her internal organs. Malachi, unfortunately, did not survive, but he bequeathed his armor to his squire, his last words being simply: "Be better than I was."
Thanks to Malachi's training and the experiences with the traveling caravan, Barbie learned how to read, how to fit in with mundane travelers, and most importantly of all, about the mission of the Tomorrow Legion. Now she plans to use her inheritance to make the world a better place as a trained Glitter Girl.
Whether you're trying to 'run legally or not, a lot of it relies on not getting caught. If you are already in the system, all of your legal permits are registered in there with your identity. If you aren't, once you are caught you are given a criminal SIN, and now you are in the system anyway. So what you really want is to make sure that you are never put into the system.
Doing things legally has the advantage that sometimes you can just breeze through low-level security (like a random Lone Star rent-a-cop pulling you over) because, well, you're a legit citizen with all of your papers in order, so you just want to go about your business. Ultimately though almost every 'run involves doing something illegal, and there will be someone who doesn't care about your papers who does not want you to do the thing you want to do, so you either have to get in and out without being spotted, or shoot them.
So, wired reflexes is the king of +initiative/+reaction. Having extra initiative dice makes you more likely to hit the 10+ rating that gives you extra actions in a turn, and a better chance to go first.
Reaction enhancer is just a flat +reaction bonus, no extra dice to initiative. That means it doesn't generate as much of a bonus to your initiative total (you aren't rolling bonus dice), but it is much cheaper in terms of Essence cost. You can have both, if you can afford the price.
Note that both reaction enhancer and wired reflexes (and the reflex trigger that you typically get with wired reflexes) can have permits, since there's a "P" in the legality code, so for an 10% extra price in nuyen, you can have those legally. (See p. 274 of SR3.)
Off to a good start. The concept is fun, a writer-turned-'runner who still has a day job writing but moonlights in the shadows. There's even an edge for that in the SR Companion.
Since you're using a spur or hand blade, you'll probably want to go first, so that you can close with your foe and melee them before they can shoot you. That means getting some Wired Reflexes is probably important, especially since you didn't take any dermal plating, dermal sheathing, or bone lacing, so you don't have bonus damage absorption cyber.
The second possible recruit that I approached says they should be able to read and consider over the weekend. They're new to SR so it's... a lot to digest.
Well, astral objects (such as sustaining foci) can be targeted by mana spells, which presumably includes Manaball. (See p. 176 of SR3, final paragraph under the subheading "Astral Objects".) It resists using its Force for the Damage Resistance test, and if it takes Deadly damage, it is destroyed, but the bigger problem is that the Manaball also hits you in such a case, because it's an area spell.
