I can tweak my power selection if need be. I could drop Pheromone Control for Cell Adjustment to do a tiny bit of healing, if we needed it. No rogues though, could hurt if we hit traps at some point.
Ok, squeaking in just under the wire, using array #4 from back on the first page, I've repurposed an old profile from a dead game into the all-new Laurelin Kentades, human psionicist (beastmaster). A combination of telepathic and psychometabolic talents helps her to understand and control animals, and she has a wide range of useful survival skills thanks to the beastmaster's special background benefits.
Personality-wise, she's a bit naive, having grown up in the scrublands outside of Tyr and rarely been to the city. She likely was caught up in a templar sting operation and accused (falsely) of trading in contraband, then sent off to slavery.
Yeah my bad, though amusing coincidence I was going to have to switch some things around anyway because I finally got my hands on the book and saw that athas bards don't get spellcasting and instead they make poison which doesn't interest me
So I need to decide whether to swap bard for thief or priest or preserver or warrior leaning on preserver because if my math is right that would let me have psion 3/preserver 2
Maybe war mage or bladesinger kits from the complete book of elves
Preserver 2 takes 2,500 xp; psionicist 3 is 4,400. You'd be preserver 2/psionicist 2 with 2,500 xp in each class.
Athasian elves don't have the culture of bladesinging; they have their own kits in the Elves of Athas sourcebook.
@I'm Hiding In Your Closet: Psionicist kits from any DARK SUN setting sourcebook are permitted.
I don't have my Bard's Handbook with me at the moment, so I can't yet comment on what kits would be available for use.
For Wizard kits, you may use any kit from Defilers & Preservers: The Wizards of Athas, except for ones that deal with the Cerulean Storm or the Free Wizard kit.
Also, I'm pretty sure you're only supposed to roll one wild talent per character, unless your rolls result in you gaining multiple powers.
The City-State of Tyr has a suggestion list about how to deal with various kits, and largely recommends that the kits in the Complete Bard are not really suitable for Athas.
(#2) I dunno, these stats are actually below average (average for 4d4+4 being a 14; 9 is notably bad under your dice system) - I guess halfling illusionist with an 8 Constitution after modifiers. Hopefully he can get killed quickly. Wild talent discipline:1d100 ⇒ 78; Wild talent:1d100 ⇒ 15
Conceal thoughts.
(#3) Another below average set (by one point); not really decent at anything. If you can't do anything well, do everything mediocre! Thri-kreen ranger/psionicist.
(#4) Might as well use this for my human psionicist (beastmaster) idea.
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Also, not to be a pain, but... are you sure you have the time to run this game? Your other game's been... erratic.
Additional note: Psionicists normally don't roll a wild talent. (See the Tribal Psionicist kit in The Will and the Way - their special ability is that they get a wild talent even though they are psionicists.)
DM Dragoncat: When you say you allow races from the DARK SUN boxed set, do you mean just the original, or do you include aarakocra and pterrans from the revised set?
... yet somehow Paizo employees were roped into writing content to generate additional money for the MMO, and Ninja Division had already failed to deliver multiple KS projects but Paizo decided to pair with them anyway.
Just sayin', that's not a good track record.
Also, it's a little weird that a company whose business model has historically been "we publish game books by using the money from our sales to finance development of new books, which we then publish" has now decided to turn to the Onyx Path model of "we fund this book by generating enthusiasm for a Kickstarter-like project." Trial balloon? Shift in strategy? Attempt to generate explosive revenue via stretch goals or fanbase to approach something like Matt Colville's Strongholds KS?
Might also have something to do with the times they've burned KS projects (MMO, miniatures with Ninja Division... you can only fail to deliver so many times).
Yep, I have the Rise of the Runelords and Curse of the Crimson Throne collected editions on my desk right next to the Kingmaker softcovers, but as soon as it said "Pathfinder 2" my interest level went to zero.
Hey Jess...didn't know you were on this forum. LOL (this is Max) Did you try the full playtest for 2E? Our group loved the changes that made it through the process.
Hey Max... yeah, I found leaning into the action economy so heavily just made things more complex than was desirable, and I especially hated the whole critical-hits-and-fails-on-spells mechanic. Overall it just smacks of PF being stuck in the corner: Their market space is "people who liked 3.5e and wanted to keep playing it," but the rise of 5e and the fact that they were still publishing under the old book-a-month model meant that there was no maneuvering room, so they were stuck with the bad choice of running out of things to publish and people to buy them, or the bad choice of alienating a chunk of their core fanbase. (It also doesn't help that their heavy lifters in design are obviously finishers, who are better at refining existing systems than making new systems whole cloth.)
Really been going around. I got a killer cold just a couple weeks ago, my S.O. got it too, and now she just got another one! I'm hoping I don't wind up hosed yet again. :/
Yep, I have the Rise of the Runelords and Curse of the Crimson Throne collected editions on my desk right next to the Kingmaker softcovers, but as soon as it said "Pathfinder 2" my interest level went to zero.
Hello! I actually am in games with several of you - I'm in a couple games with Rhialla too! Good to see you again!
Here is a link to my prospective recruit. Note that in addition to having the ability to make wondrous items and magic weapons and armor, I took a trait that shaves another 5% off the price, so we'll be able to make lots of magical gear at a very good rate. Also, with my archetype's special feature next level, and with the skeleton crew spell, if we ever capture another ship I can probably man it myself to bring it back to port for refit or sale.
I PM'd a character to DBH last week but can post a link here if desired.
Note that neither I nor DBH has been able to find any reference to how your ability scores are determined, as your characters' relative point-buy are all over the map!
DM, do you have particular reservations about strix? Fly speed of 60 is prretty jarring for low-level gameplay (though bandits do often have bows). Also thematically strix can present challenges for fitting into human polities.
Ok, I've made two slightly different arcanists, and I'd like feedback on which one the group likes better.
Quanah Valeria is the strix arcanist. I took the Brigand background to represent that she has a history of fighting against humans, due to the nature of strix/human relations. She would be in Rostland, faaaar from her home, looking to make a new start, somewhere that she (hopefully) wouldn't be persecuted.
This arcanist is a utility caster and buffer. Her ability to fly is a significant advantage at low levels, especially while mapping terrain for Kingmaker. At higher levels her utility spells + magic item creation should provide benefits to the team.
Story-wise she needs a human buddy to vouch for her - someone that Brevoy considers the "charter-holder"; whoever is the noble in the group, if someone took that trait, because that would let her be under the umbrella of the heir that Brevoy is setting up for the new lands. Otherwise there... isn't much room in the story for a free strix to be ennobled in human lands.
Dyseya Braze is a peri-blooded aasimar master of fire. This means she's a blaster! Yes, I know that blaster effectiveness drops off sharply at higher levels, at which time she'll move into also doing utility casting. Dyseya has a different set of advantages, primarily the fact that she can easily fit in with human society and that she is a much better "face" character than Quanah. She's also just easier to get along with in general. :)
I'm leaning toward one of these three (in increasing levels of oddity):
1. Halfling ranger (trapper) - A scruffy halfling who wants to settle some nice land by a lake and build his own cozy farm, but in the meantime he enjoys the outdoors, camping, fishing, and stabbing the heck out of monsters.
2. Strix arcanist - This character would need a tie to another PC, to explain fitting in with humans. Hoping to find a place in the woods to build a new home for the strix people, who are largely hunted and enslaved in Golarion. Broad utility and blasting magic, plus later some item creation feats.
3. Centaur cavalier (charger) - An emissary of the Nomen centaurs, trying to bridge peace between the centaurs and expanding human territories. This one is difficult because centaurs have huge stat bonuses relative to other character types in PF, and it comes with built-in trouble for getting into small spaces.
Ral has been out of the city a couple of times, for guided zoology/hunting tours. He may develop some very basic beast empathy but that is not really a focus for him (unless the game pushes him in that direction, of course).
His family was enthusiastically neutral, like the king, and like the king have become quite anti-Imperial in light of recent events.
He thinks that Saw Gerrera is an extremist, though he grudgingly concedes that the fellow has grit.
It's likely that Ral was picked up by Imperials while he was off-world, probably while pleasure-cruising on a family space yacht. (Fewer problems for the Imperials with local authorities that way.)
As he develops he will probably gain more sympathies with the Rebellion. He is unlikely to want to study as either a Jedi or a Sith - he is a hobbyist, not a religious zealot. ;)
In terms of character advancement, while he is Force Sensitive, he will be unlikely to develop more powers than Mind Trick, Illusion, and perhaps a little bit of Sense talent - some hunches and the like. He would go heavily into the noble talent trees for wealth and influence.
My concept is Ral Denaris, a dissolute Onderon nobleman. His family has a long and storied history dating back to the ancient days of the Onderanian nobility. He has a good deal of disposable income and he relishes the obscure, the occulted, and the socially shocking.
While he is a monarchist, he is an Onderon traditionalist, meaning that he has no love for the Empire - he doesn't want outsiders telling them what to do. He believes in a constitutional monarchy (so, democratic elected parliament + monarch) because he thinks it's the best way to keep the populace busy with their political squabbling while the monarchs go about their own business of running things.
He was arrested and brought aboard the Deception on several charges: Firstly, the Empire trumped up corruption charges against him because he is a political dissident; second, he has a fascination with his family's Onderonian history going back to the time of Freedon Nadd, which means he studies forbidden knowledge; third, he tends to mouth off to and make enemies of Imperial officers.
Ral has fond memories of his mother, who was a doting parent. (He was an only child.) His father tended to push Ral more toward doing studies of economics and politics so that he could be an effective administrator, but Ral's mother filled his head with strange stories, before she fell ill while Ral was a teenager. She is still alive but requires constant medical supervision.
Ral is a lean man who tends to let his black hair grow long. He has several tattoos on his shoulders and upper arms that are supposedly old arcane sigils from his family history. (GM's choice what they actually mean.)
Ral is inspired by the swords & sorcery archetypes of dissolute nobles who dabble in sorcery - the kinds of characters that formed the Sith cultists of Onderon in the Old Republic comics that took place during the Beast Rider epics and the like. Despite these historical roots he has some semblance of a moral compass - he has a strong distaste for violence and for waste, and he hates the Empire as noted previously - that would push him readily in the Rebel, or at least anti-Empire, camp.
Mechanically Ral would be a Noble, but he is Force-sensitive and studies a few obscure tricks, primarily illusions, based on ancient secrets handed down in his family archives.
@Viondar - I'll have to do a little research on those questions. I know very well the confusion about the +1 Str (I'm a lifelong bladesinger...my nastiest was an Eberron character named Lazarro who pretty much couldn't ever be hit without a natural 20). We have played it where it jumps to 19, but I remember tripping over sometime recently that suggested it became a +10 or something to the fighter percentile. I'll see if I can find the answer again, maybe it was a nightmare, lol.
The other questions are tougher because my experience with the Options series is limited. They came out toward the end of 2nd Edition and I think my table was doing more World of Darkness at that time than anything else. I'm always good with the easy to integrate stuff like the feats/profs/styles, but have never dived into class customization. Generally, I would want to avoid it only because it would make me feel like I need to rework some bosses, but I'll look stuff over.
Skills & Powers was an interesting idea poorly executed. For instance, if you want to play a kick-ass fighter, the thing to do using S&P is make a cleric, drop the spellcasting, and take a better hit die and fighting abilities. You get all the fighter abilities, you have extra points to buy other special abilities, and you use the cleric xp table for advancement. This is because they gave each class its own allotment of build points, and classes with many features (like the cleric) got more build points to do more customization, but this means you can take your many cleric points and customize it into a fighter, whereas a fighter has few points and can't do much customization at all.
The "+10 to percentile" comes from a line in the DMG about wishes and other ability score improvements coming in tenths of a point when you are raising a stat above 18. This was implemented because of games where players would frequently find and use wishes and manuals/tomes to raise their ability scores to absurdly high levels; rather than address the underlying problem (clash between game styles and cultures at various tables) they just stuck in a rule to make it harder to do this. This does not apply to your ability score bonuses from your character type: Just like a typical high elf gets +1 Dexterity and goes from 18 to 19, a sylvan elf has a maximum Strength score of 19 and a rolled 18 with a +1 goes to a 19. This is a huge jump in ability because it skips the entire progression of percentile strength, but them's the rules. (This is one of the many ways in which early edition AD&D has weird edge-case rules that can cause more problems than they solve.)
Note that Xenotime, though young, is not stupid. He is very bright, he just has the emotional maturity of a five-year-old (because that's how old he is). A well-behaved five-year-old (as he has a high Wisdom score).
I did say it was the dumbest pitch that you would see.
The character is not really intended to gain levels, due to the timetables that dragons typically require. It'll go from hatchling to level 1 about when the rest of the party is hitting level 4, and level 2 when the rest of the party is around level 6-7. Given the typical speed of online play on the boards, that's several years of realtime.
I couldn't make something interesting for the Maztica thread, let's see if I have better luck this time.
Rolls:
Set 1
Roll roll:2d6 + 6 ⇒ (5, 3) + 6 = 14 Roll roll:2d6 + 6 ⇒ (1, 5) + 6 = 12 Roll roll:2d6 + 6 ⇒ (6, 4) + 6 = 16 Roll roll:2d6 + 6 ⇒ (3, 5) + 6 = 14 Roll roll:2d6 + 6 ⇒ (6, 4) + 6 = 16 Roll roll:2d6 + 6 ⇒ (5, 1) + 6 = 12
Set 2
Roll roll:2d6 + 6 ⇒ (6, 4) + 6 = 16 Roll roll:2d6 + 6 ⇒ (5, 3) + 6 = 14 Roll roll:2d6 + 6 ⇒ (3, 4) + 6 = 13 Roll roll:2d6 + 6 ⇒ (2, 3) + 6 = 11 Roll roll:2d6 + 6 ⇒ (3, 4) + 6 = 13 Roll roll:2d6 + 6 ⇒ (1, 2) + 6 = 9
Ok, using set 1, I am going to pitch the stupidest character concept you'll see here (and possibly in the running for most terrible character concept in a wide range of AD&D 2nd edition games).
The Dumbest Pitch:
Xenotime
Neutral male crystal dragon psionicist hatchling, age 5 (using Council of Wyrms)
(Dragon-psionicists are required to be nonchaotic, even if the dragon type normally mandates a chaotic alignment)
Strength 7 (12 +1 crystal dragon -6 hatchling)
Dexterity 12
Constitution 16
Intelligence 16
Wisdom 17 (16 +1 crystal dragon)
Charisma 15 (14 +1 crystal dragon)
Weapon Proficiencies: 4
Claw Attack (free): 1d6+2 damage
Bite (1): 2d6+1 damage
Breath Weapon (1): 60' cone, 25' wide, crystal shards 1d4+1, save for half, second save vs. dazzling (-2 to attack rolls)
Dragon Flight (1)
Aerial Combat (1)
Nonweapon Proficiencies: 5, +2 Intelligence bonus
(Dragons only get half the bonus from their Intelligence)
Danger Sense (free from crystal dragon type)
Language, Modern - Gem Dragon (free)
Language, Modern - High Draconic (1)
Language, Modern - Common (1)
Survival (2)
Observation (1)
Swimming (1)
Direction Sense (1)
AC 3, THAC0 19
Hit points (4d6, +8 Con): 26
Saving throws:
13 Paralyzation, Poison, or Death Magic
15 Rod, Staff, or Wand
10 Petrification or Polymorph
16 Breath Weapon
15 Spell
Special abilities:
Charm person at will
Personality:
Xenotime is a curious, garrulous "little" thing - a crystal gem dragon about 4' long with a 6' tail (so, about the size of a pony or lion). He loves meeting new people and chatting with them, but most people are scared of him - dragons, well, having a "reputation." He isn't sure where he came from because somehow he got lost when he was very young. He has a very vague memory of his mother but has not seen her in years, which is a matter of some concern, and he wonders where she went and why she lost him.
When he is not bursting into tears because of remembering his mother, or hiding shyly from armored knights and wizards hunting "the dangerous dragon," he loves to play little games like hide-and-seek or chase-the-cat. He is an agile flyer but his claws are somewhat clumsy. He is smart enough to know that flying high over the treetops - especially over human settlements - is a bad idea.
Advancement:
By the rules, Xenotime will gain his first level of dragon-psionicist after gaining 8,000 xp. This means he'll be busy for a long, long time without leveling up.
As noted above, I love the idea of the Maztica setting, but the execution of game systems in it is awful. It needs a lot of work - you'd have to answer these questions about how bards work, how taking a kit at a later level is supposed to work, whether you can even take a kit if it says "you must have X proficiencies by Y level" and your character does not have enough slots to potentially learn them, etc.
Fun fact: Because the plumaweaver is required to buy a whole bunch of proficiencies that are outside of their usual class group, you can't actually meet the requirements for the kit's nonweapon proficiencies unless you have an Intelligence of 14 or more (which I don't), or you get some kind of crossover from being dual-classed or multiclassed. They're not clear on whether this means you can't advance beyond level 9, or if you are not allowed to take the kit at all if you couldn't get those proficiencies. (The terribleness of this is exacerbated by the rule that says you can hold off on taking a kit until level 3 - so how does a plumaweaver work, then? Do you start as a rogue with rogue abilities and then when you move into the kit at a later level you just "forget" them? Same for weapon proficiencies, since a rogue can use weapons that a plumaweaver cannot? It's so bad.)
(The relevant problem is that Animal Lore, Healing, and Tracking, all of which are required by level 10, are not on the Rogue or General list, so they all take one extra slot, over and above their normal cost; this means Animal Lore is 2 slots, Healing is 3, and Tracking is 2. Set Snares and Weaving are 1 each, total of 9 slots - as a rogue, you start with 3 and get 2 more before level 10, so you would need at least +4 slots to qualify.)
DM, please advise on whether this means that I can't play a plumaweaver, either. (See p. 63 of the Maztica core rule book.)
Starting money:2d6 ⇒ (2, 1) = 3 x10 = 30. Of course. So not only can I not play any class that I'd enjoy, I can't have any gear, either. (It's 50 just for the composite short bow that would be the only viable weapon I could use, and as a 1st level plumaweaver I have no rogue skills and no spells so that would be my only contribution to the party.)
@DM, I really love the idea of the Maztica setting, but it seems the dice have decided that I'm not allowed to play. Thanks anyway.
Yeah, are there any sample or pregen bards in any of the modules? That should tell us their magic situation.
If the bard loses Pick Pockets AND spellcasting, then I can't really see how it would be considered a viable class any more.
Since rogues all lose Pick Pockets and Open Locks, maybe swap in one of the other specialty rogue abilities that were introduced in DARK SUN for high-level rogues: detect magic, detect illusions, bribery, forgery, tunneling, or escape bonds. (See Dragon Kings 71-73, if you have that book handy.)
It's ok, I'm just trying to figure out a Maztican. I am not even sure if plumaweavers have the typical rogue skills - the text is unclear; they are a rogue kit but nothing in it says anything about keeping or losing rogue abilities, as far as I've been able to find so far. Sooo it might be redundant, or might wind up being a minor caster whose spells are pretty weak.
Well, that depends. The Maztica rules (p. 47) say that bards lose their pick pocket ability, but they say nothing about spellcasting - but Maztican characters typically don't have access to arcane magic. Would a Maztican bard also lose spells? If so, would they get anything in return?
The plumaweaver is a rogue, and there's already a rogue. I'm currently playing clerics in five games on the boards so I'd prefer not to do that yet again. There are no wizards native to Maztica, and if I'm gonna play a Maztica game I'd like to play a Maztican character.
These aren't really bad stats, I just can't play any of the characters that I would like to play with them. Very old-school: If your dice luck sucks, then no, you can't play a ranger.
Well that's pretty mediocre. I guess could be good at one thing. I'm trying to come up with a concept. I was thinking of playing an Eagle Knight, but my stats are too low to meet the required minimums. My next thought was a survival-oriented ranger for wilderness travel, but my stats are too low for that, too. I just can't come up with a concept that is interesting to me, as this stat set bars everything I was thinking of doing.
Yes, first level to start. Obviously, advancement partly depends on class in AD&D, but I would expect at least one level to be possible. Also, depending on bonus exp and side-treks and random encounters (oh, my!) a third level is for sure attainable.
I'll allow half-orcs, however my only source at the moment is Unearthed Arcana, which is fine, but if you can find a 2nd Edition source for them, let me know.
So I'm leaning toward doing a Baklunish wizard from the Caliphate of Ekbir (far to the northwest). He is a devotee of Al'Akbar. He is eager to learn magical secrets and improve his powers so that he can become a famous and benevolent mage, and he has ambitions to find a spot on the Circle of Eight (which is unlikely to happen but, y'know, good to have a dream).
I haven't figured out his motivation for going this far from home yet. Possibly some kind of "misunderstanding" leading to a hasty exit. Also possible that he's chasing some magical McGuffin, or has a connection to another party member and is along for the ride.
Sadly there's no real genie-themed wizard type in Pathfinder (the sha'ir being an occultist archetype) so either I'll be a universal wizard, or else I'll do a spell sage, bonded wizard, or chronomancer.
Sorry, sorry! I went camping on the weekend and thought I would have internet signal, but I didn't, and my S.O. has been keeping me busy and I have not had more than a minute to check the boards today. Trying to check in now.
Do you have a list of the nine people who are under consideration? I didn't ever get a response about the possibility of playing a wizard looking to make a name for him/herself and eventually join the Circle of Eight (probably a long-term goal outside of the scope of the campaign, but a good motivator to seek out magical knowledge and perform impressive feats). Baklunish, perhaps.
