Actually, there were two. Gideon came in 2/7, Orrlis came in 2/8, you came in 2/10, and Isagoras came in 2/11. :p
But I'll admit, Orrlis sort of snuck in there, and the applicant didn't have any other posts besides his application (I don't think). And there were quite a few posts between Gideon's app and yours despite the fact it was just a few days of RL time. Easy enough to see how you might have missed either one.
Either way, best of luck to you. I've never seen a sorlock played before, so if we're both selected, I'll definitely be interested to see what one is capable of.
@Jereru: We actually have *three* clerics already submitted (Gideon Stormarrow (Tempest Domain), Orrlis Sunmane (Life Domain), and Isagoras the Light (Light Domain)), so I think you were probably better off choosing the Sorlock.
To all applicants, I echo Jereru's wish: best of luck!
If you want me to choose an uncommon magic item for Mell, I’d choose a bag of tricks. As for the other uncommon item, I also am not sure what my options are.
@Herkymr: I believe D&D Beyond's (dndbeyond.com) free option will let you create 3 characters. Unfortunately, the default options are pretty limited (PHB only), so you'd need someone with a subscription that allows them to share unlocked content with you. My subscription, unfortunately, doesn't allow that, or I'd happily share.
You might also check out the options listed here. The article was recently updated (Less than a month ago) and if you read through it, it gives you the pros and cons of each option. The only thing it doesn't mention is which options are paid and which are free, so you'll have to figure that out for yourself.
I left a lot of the details of the murderers Mell's backstory has her seeking intentionally vague, as I wanted to leave plenty of room for you to tie her personal quest to any BBEGs the party might be seeking. However, upon reading some of this party's prior adventures, it seems more that they take on numerous smaller adventures as opposed to a main quest against one or more BBEGs with various smaller side quests. If selected for the party, I'm happy to flesh out as many of the details surrounding the murderers as you need.
How soon does the submission need to be fully complete?
@Avendryl/Talomyr: Greycastle said that the hard deadline is Feb 21, but if he receives enough solid applications, he might close submissions on Feb 17 instead.
Born in Targos, Mell showed an early knack for nature, learning the Herbalist’s trade from her mother, and at 18, she officially became a Druid, quickly ranking up to join the Circle of Wildfire, which she thought to be the practice of Druidcraft most suited to the harsh cold of Icewind Dale.
At 20, she met her husband, Jeren, a ranger, while working to find a family who had gotten lost in a snowstorm. Two years later, they were married, and Jeren was offered a job keeping the peace in the tiny town of Lonelywood. Mell wasn’t overly fond of the residents of Lonelywood, but she did enjoy exploring the nearby forest when weather permitted and found her work as a herbalist and local rescuer rewarding.
Four years later, her son Jashan was born, and Mell was thrilled, although she quickly began worrying that the town’s criminal elements would provide poor role models for her son. Jeren, however, dismissed her concerns, as he rather enjoyed his role as the town lawman, and he liked the idea of teaching Jashan all of his tricks of survival in such a remote town.
One day when Jashan was 8, Mell made her monthly trip into Termalaine for supplies. Upon her return at sunset, she found neither Jeren nor Jashan at home. Assuming something had come up which required her husband’s attention, she went to the Lucky Liar, the local tavern. The tavern owner took one look at her and said, “Please sit down. I”m afraid there’s bad news.”
After she sat down, the tavern owner continued, “Yesterday afternoon, a group of strangers showed up in town. After greeting them, Jeren asked if they had come to Lonelywood seeking a new start, and the one who seemed to be the leader replied, 'Yeah, you might say that.' Jeren told them about the resources around town and all might have come to nothing, except he noticed a brooch on the ground - you know the one Anilla Trayner always wears that was her inheritance from her mother. Jeren picked up the brooch and asked the men if it belonged to one of them. I guess one of them claimed it it was a gift for his girlfriend. Jeren refused to hand over the brooch and told the men they needed to leave town, and just like that, they attacked him. Jeren held his own, but unfortunately, most of the men were either out logging or fishing, so there wasn't a lot of help from the town. Those that did gather managed to get the strangers to leave, and after they were gone, Jeren just collapsed. He didn't regain consciousness and passed last night. This morning, the strangers were back, and when Jashan saw them, he just got livid yelling at the men and hitting them. One of them snapped his neck just because he could. They then proceeded to rob the entire town and left. I'm so sorry for your loss, Mell."
Mell felt numb, but set about the business of burying her husband and son and gathering as much information as she could about the strangers. Since their home was provided by the town, she moved all of her family's belongings out and took it by cart to Termalaine and then Targos, promising to get word out of Lonelywood's need for a new lawman.
She sold all of her husband and son's belongs but one that reminded her of each - a wolf carved of scrimshaw that Jeren had made and a rough owl of fir wood that Jashan had carved. She put the rest of her own belongings into storage and set about trying to learn about the strangers, but by the time she took care of all of her personal business, the trail had gone cold. She then set out to strengthen her druid skills, knowing that she would need to be as strong as possible if she was going to catch those who murdered her husband and son.
Now sixth level, Mell has vowed not to rest or grieve until she has attained justice for her husband and son. The few clues she has managed to gather suggest a trip to the Spine of the World is called for, so to the Spine of the World she is heading.
I’m interested in submitting a Circle of Wildfire Druid, which I always thought would be fun to play in Icewind Dale. Do you want the character info added via spoiler, or in the Paizo character generation area?
Edit: Also, would you accept races from Monsters of the Multiverse, since it effectively replaces both Tome of Foes and Volo’s Guide to Monsters?
@Quixote: You would have made a *wonderful* help in dealing with this guy, and I wish I’d met you several months ago and been able to drag you in to help me out. I love your 1-2 punch approach! I’m a fairly quiet person naturally, but because I have never married and therefore never had anyone else to rely on to stand up for me, I had to learn to do it myself. I certainly wouldn’t say I’m the best at it, but I’m not afraid to call someone out when I think they’re being a jerk. Setting boundaries is hard with this guy because he just bulldozes right through them and then justifies it on the basis of having good intentions or it not being “fun”. This guy has been exhausting for me to deal with and I see some big costs in his future if he doesn’t mend his ways.
I think one of the reasons I’ve kept trying to hang in there with this guy is that I actually DO see evidence of a morality in him, but he totally undervalues people skills - he sees only the objective side of things and has a certain amount of the-ends-justify-the-means thinking, though I wouldn’t call him Machiavellian by any stretch. He out and out pooh-poohs the need for people skills. As far as I’m concerned, he finally pooh-poohed away my willingness to continue associating with him. That said, he will always rush in to aid any NPC he feels is being abused, and his characters tend to talk about morality, they just talk the talk a lot better than they walk the walk. But I think that’s true at one point or another for every person who tries to live by a moral code. It’s part of being a work in progress as a person.
Heck, we even got into an argument about morality one time when he had heartburn over the fact my character was considering using a memory-altering charm if any of our new followers (we had both just gotten the Leadership feat) didn’t want to join us because our party is wanted by the law for murdering a Queen that we didn’t actually murder. We had just confessed that to them because we felt they should know - he loved that idea - and I was concerned that any dissenters would blab it to the authorities (I’ve since learned followers don’t as a rule do stuff like that). His Druid/Arcane Trickster character had started the game having lost her memory, then later both her and her love interest had their memories of each other wiped away when the Druid/Arcane Trickster character tried to strongarm the local fairy queen into doing things the druid’s way and the memory wipe was the fairy queen’s way of saying, “I don’t think so.” He was playing the second fighter character when we had that fight, but his Druid/Trickster had obviously had firsthand experience with the wrong side of memory loss. My character had a particular way she wanted to use a memory charm that was far less invasive than what his character had experienced, and she just wanted to investigate to see if it could be done. (It turned out it couldn’t, so my character discarded the idea.). He got all up in my face over that. He would call himself passionate, and he is, but he’s also obnoxious as hell because of his need to control other people’s decisions instead of merely influencing influencing them. I tried to have a talk with him about the difference, but because that involves people skills, he of course pooh-poohed it.
And even with his leaving, he said he had attended church and his priest had been talking about ways we unintentionally injure other people and something I said in game that day connected the priest’s words with his and my relationship, and so he decided to leave. Personally I think learning to compromise will serve him much better over the long run, but there’s still morality in the choice to leave.
@HighLordNiteshade: Yep, same guy. What differences do you see between what I talked about in October and what I’m talking about here? I mean beyond the fact that then I was asking about ideas for setting boundaries in case I had to deal with him when my character as a solo player had to meet up with the main party to share news, and now I’m just asking for ideas on how he can channel his urges in a more constructive direction now that he’s dropping out of the game.
@Mark Hoover 330: I’ve not done any PF games that weren’t pbp, but do reach out when you get to that breaking point. I don’t generally check my Paizo PM, so let me PM you my email address and you can reach out that way. The highest level character I’ve ever played is level 9, so your level 10 game sounds like a good fit in terms of my experience level. I have a few other questions I’d want to ask before I definitely say I’m in, but I’ll put those in the PM as well.
@Warped Savant: he started off playing a Druid and I started off playing a ranger. I had wanted to play a Druid, but he had already chosen Druid by the time I was recruited, so I chose ranger as a second choice for the sake of team balance. Through the course of our adventure, his Druid got trapped on the Astral Plane but managed to make her way to this magic shop/bank in a pocket dimension that she had access to. The Druid lost contact with nature while there and wound up converting to Arcane Trickster. While that character was trapped in the pocket dimension (which was quite a while; he had to roll up another character to play until we got strong enough to get her out) my ranger converted to a Druid, since that *had* been my first choice. At first, he did kind of try to tell me how to play my Druid (at least in combat), but with respect to how pushy and obnoxious he can be, it was pretty mild.
So he doesn’t really do any of the things you’re talking about, at least not in a way that Is hard to tolerate.
@Quixote: Heh. There is so much involved with this story and I can be extremely wordy at the best of times, so I was trying to be more concise.
Creativity: At one point I was playing with him and another person in a homebrew world he created where he was the GM. It was basically an RPG, but much simpler than Pathfinder. Some of of the rules changed as we went along, but many of the places we went to were quite imaginative. I vaguely remember this place we went to that had interlocking clockwork gears we had to navigate through and we were riding on...I forget what it was now, but it was definitely imaginative. Sorry I don't remember better. That was probably the most fun I ever had with him.
Unwilling to Compromise: At one point I asked him for a compromise in how he treats me. I think I asked him to give me a little more breathing room around decisions (he tends to get up in my face and crowd me, especially if he disagrees, and he tends to be obnoxiously argumentative in those cases). I told him I still wanted him to have input, and I said I wanted to do it on a trial basis because I wanted him to just try it out, and that anything he didn't like I was open to improving because that's the whole point of a trial - to see what works and change what doesn't. He point-blank refused. And I tried variations on this approach so many times I lost count that he also refused. It finally became one of the top two reasons I separated from the party.
Pushes Limits: This one is hard for me to describe, because while I can see when he does this in a socially obnoxious way, what I can't see is when he's doing it for sake of being innovative. So I think I'll leave this one unanswered.
He does definitely lack empathy and kindness, except toward NPCs who he can generally manipulate via game mechanics or quest completion into giving him what he wants or in a very shallow way where he comes up with some good thing he wants to get for us, but whether that's useful for us or something we actually want at that moment is never something he considers. If he decides he wants to make armor for the group, we get armor, even if we'd rather put our share of that money toward, say, a headband of some sort.
But in a way, none of this matters, because he *is* leaving. I'm hoping to find someone who thinks similarly to how he does who can talk a bit about their evolution in terms of breaking boundaries and social situations.
I am also hoping to find some alternatives to playing in an RPG that I can suggest to him that would allow him to indulge these three desires without inflicting his lack of empathy on everyone else. In my final words to him, I want to say that lack of compromise can never work in social game like an RPG if he's a player, but that if he wants to combine those three things in a more positive, constructive way that would result in less drama and conflict and a better experience for everyone, some practical alternatives might be X, Y, and Z. Then I'd just have to hope one resonates with him, even if I never hear about it. Sometimes when you plant a seed, it fails to sprout, but if you never plant the seed, nothing good ever has the chance to grow.
@SheepishEidolon: Thanks for your concern, but this is an online pbp game. When I referred to never sitting at the table with him again, I was speaking of a figurative game table not a literal one. Mr. Creative is likable but not trustworthy, and in my mind those are very different things. He is married IRL and we live in different parts of the country. I don’t get involved with married men - never have, never will, and I’m old enough to be set in that habit. Any further conversation I might have with him would be online, where limits can easily be imposed, and it would be brief. If I had to deal too much with this jerk, I’d either murder him or I’d become a drug addict or alcoholic, and none of those options particularly appeals to me. :D
@Mark Hoover 330: Would you be alright with it if I took what you said about how you have dealt with people like this and passed it on to my GM? He’s a good GM in terms of the mechanics of the game, but isn’t that comfortable with handling conflict between players. I think he’s wanted to help but hasn’t been sure how. I keep telling him that learning how to deal with player conflict will make him an even better GM than he already is.
Tell me, do you by chance have any games running now that are accepting new players? It would be nice to play under a GM who knows how to deal with jerk behavior.
i participate in a Pathfinder RPG with a very outgoing and creative male player who likes breaking barriers and boundaries for the sake of doing something new and innovative, but does not want to have to compromise with other players about what he’s doing. He says it spoils the fun for him. In his defense, he does realize that when his play style causes someone else not to have fun, that’s not a good thing.
His unwillingness to compromise was a huge sore spot for me for quite a while and really ruined my ability to have fun with him. I finally left the party because of it, and our GM offered to let me run solo. As long as I wasn’t going to have to deal with him very often and our GM was okay with the extra work, I was perfectly fine with the idea of doing things that way so he could still stay in the party. A few days ago, he announced that he was leaving permanently so I wouldn’t have to leave the party.
We’ve had a pretty good clearing of the air since then, and while I will NEVER sit at another game table with him ever again, things are good enough between us that I could probably have a conversation with him about RL stuff if the opportunity arose. I’m hoping to leave things between us on as positive a note as possible.
On the one hand, I think that his unwillingness to compromise doesn’t really belong in a teamwork-oriented social game like an RPG, but on the other, I can’t help but think that there are other players out there somewhere who want the same things he does who might have some good suggestions.
1. I want to ask experienced GMs to chime in if they’ve ever dealt with a player like this guy and if they know of a way to give him everything I’ve listed here without driving the other players batty.
2. I also want to ask if there are any players out there who really resonate with the idea of pushing boundaries for the sake of doing something new and innovative and how you handle the social aspects of an RPG. Do you refuse to compromise for the sake of your fun?
3. Does anyone know of a game other than an RPG or some pursuit other than a game where the player I’m talking about could combine his desire for socialization, creativity/innovation, and no compromise constructively? Having some adventure in the mix would be good too, but is not a strict necessity.
There may not be an option to let him combine everything he wants, but I’m new enough to RPGs in general that I figure it’s worth asking! You all have experience and expertise that I don’t.
Well, TxSam88, if I could find another game that really appeals to me like this one does, I’d definitely consider it. I’ve looked at a number of games here on the Paizo site in the past, but most of them are set in Golarion, and the Golarion world just doesn’t grab my interest for some reason. That’s part of why I’ve hung on with this game for so long. I like RPGs, but there are some particular things I stick with because I know I like them.
But...it might be worth looking again. Who knows what I’ll find.
@yukongil: The fairy is definitely not an archetypal Fey. That character started off as a human female, and when we were given the opportunity to make use of a wish fairly early on in the campaign, he took it and chose to have the character’s form changed to that of some fairies we’d met at that stop. The fairy character’s personality is still more that of her human self, which is somewhat serious and solemn but can still laugh and have fun. And very outgoing, but not especially mischievous.
Mostly all I see from him OOC is chit-chat, and as I said above, he’s a decent conversationalist. Problem is, chit-chat doesn’t really tell you much about social skills. I’ve learned more about that from playing with him.
I did manage to track down the fairy’s levels: fairy 4, rogue 3, sorcerer 1. Also, she has an ungodly high DEX (+9 at Diminutive, +10 at Fine) and a Fly skill of 28 if she stays Diminutive, or 30 if she uses one of her 4 daily uses of Reduce Person (which comes from her fairy levels) to change down to Fine sized. Stealth is 32 at Diminutive and 37 at Fine. Oi!
And I can”t just poof off into sunset and be totally gone as far as he knows. Our campaign is fundamentally a ginormous murder investigation. There’s a need for sharing information, and I’m a collaborative player at heart. I’ve already announced to the party at large that I’ll be around but off doing my own thing, and as soon as my cohort wizard learns Sending (2 more levels), I’ll be in touch. And I won’t be Sending to the fairy, I’ll Send to any other player.
I did send him a DM last week in which I told him I wasn’t having fun playing with him anymore and that I intend to never sit at a new game table with him ever again, that if I see he’s there, I’ll be the bigger person and walk away and let him have it. I told him I would be limiting my interactions with him in this game and I didn’t want him to feel blind-sided when I start doing that. I alluded to some fun times we’d had, and that I had enjoyed those times but that I felt he wasn’t ready to be friends with someone as much his opposite as I am, because doing that requires communication, listening, and a willingness to both see things from the other person’s perspective and to compromise. So far, he’s kept his distance. We’ll see if it holds.
I also told the rest of the party except him in private conversations that if the day ever came where they weren’t happy with how things were going, they were welcome to come join me. I don’t think it’s cool to mooch players, so I just left it at that. They know they are welcome, and the opportunity is there if they ever feel the need for it. I wouldn’t see it as a bad thing if they didn’t. As long as everyone is happy where they are, that’s all that matters.
Somewhere along the line, someone has equated boundary buster with stalker. While all stalkers are definitely boundary busters, not all boundary busters are stalkers. I think of a stalker as a more extreme version of a boundary buster, who is more of an ordinary person who has trouble with the no’s of others and is annoying, but not threatening. He’s never once said or done anything I’d call creepy or threatening, only annoying. While I do have concerns that he might in a way stalk me (and that’s probably where the boundary buster vs. stalker confusion comes from, so mea culpa there) it’s more like if a superhero had Asperger’s Syndrome - a guy who seems to genuinely want to do good, but constantly misses social cues and who also thinks he has everything all figured out and has nothing more to learn, so that means everyone else has to listen to him. The encounter I imagine if we should meet up again goes something like this:
———————————————-
MR PROBLEM: While you’ve been away, I’ve been thinking, and there’s something I want to say to you.
ME: I’m not ready to hear you out yet. Go away.
MR PROBLEM: But I’ve saved 2 Elves, 4 Halflings, 7 kobold children, and 23 leshys while you were away. I’m one of the good guys!
ME: I’m not going to say this to you again. Begone, pest!
MR PROBLEM: My conscience tells me I really must tell you that -
ME: (uses whatever solution I manage to devise here before he gets the chance to finish.). I’m not listening to you until you learn that no means no.
———————————————
If he had the feel of a creepazoid stalker, I’d definitely leave the game entirely and not just split off. Since that’s not the case here, I’m gonna try out the solo adventuring, but definitely keep leaving the game entirely on the table as an option. If he goes more true stalkery, I’ll leave at that time.
Also, he could never stalk me via teleportation except if we were on the same island. One of the features of this homebrew world is that teleportation doesn’t work over water, and we adventure in a sea of islands. There are several continents, but they are all a long sea voyage away, and there are enough islands that we’re not all that likely to accidentally meet up with each other.
As to why I need a ship, my first thought after I agreed to solo adventure was to hire onto another ship. I’ve invested enough skill points into Profession: Sailing and Profession:Navigation that my character could easily hire onto any ship she wanted. Problem is, she’d have to do what her employer wanted and not be able to investigate who framed her and her friends for the murder of the Queen of her home island. Having her own ship will give her that freedom.
Gonna talk to my GM about some of the options you guys have given me. Thanks for the input, all!
@HighlordNiteshade: To my knowledge (and because Mr. Problem doesn’t communicate, this is subject to being possibly wrong), the only thing that has been character-driven is some of the bragging and boasting. But in my opinion, he was way over the top with it - just super obnoxious. Not funny obnoxious, but obnoxious obnoxious, like it was an excuse to engage in being a dickwad or something. Now he’s played two different characters - the fairy character and a female bad-@$$ fighter, and it was the fighter who was the boaster. I do know he didn’t enjoy playing that character and wanted to get the fairy back, but she got herself caught in the party’s bag of holding in a battle with a wereshark, and when we couldn’t produce the wereshark’s trident of awesomeness, the wereshark smashed the bag of holding and sent the fairy to the Astral Plane, and we weren’t strong enough to retrieve her. I had hoped that when the fairy returned, things would get better, so I tried to hang in there with him until then, but when my character and his fairy character had our first one-on-one conversation after the fairy character’s return, it became very obvious that things weren’t going to get better. That’s actually the point at which I made the decision to leave.
To whoever suggested allying with the other players: part of the problem here is that Mr. Problem and I are the only two in our party who really like to RP and we both post the most frequently, while the others post at most only a couple of times a week, unless there’s a combat going, in which case they post more often. So they never have to deal with it as much as I do. That’s actually part of what ultimately made me decide to leave the party - no one else to RP with.
Something else I know is that Mr. Problem spent some time working as a cartoonist before starting this campaign. It sort of seems like he’s trying to have his cake and eat it, too: people to socialize with but at the same time all of the control he had as a cartoonist, and that approach just doesn’t work. If you’re going to play with people, you have to be able to compromise.
And let me remind everyone of my original question, which has not been addressed: can anyone think of a way I can enchant my ship to keep this guy off of it? I’m not finding another game because I’m invested in what happens in this one, and we spend a lot of time at sea, which means once one party or the other leaves our current location, I won’t have to see him except whenever we meet up to share news.
1. He gives a lot of unsolicited advice. I’ve told him numerous times, “When I want your input, I’ll ask for it, and I don’t need it right now.” He just keeps right on. Normally, I’d be at least somewhat tolerant about this, but after 4 stupid years of never being able to have an interchange without him giving his unwanted advice, I’m well past fed up. I think he think he thinks he’s being helpful, but he isn’t, and when I tell him his unwanted advice isn’t helpful, he just keeps doing it.
2. He’s a very spontaneous, spur-of-the-moment kind of person who thinks well on his feet, but he makes decisions for other people that aren’t his to make. I am tolerant of this in cases where input is needed from someone and they for whatever reason aren’t able to get online for several days and there’s a need to keep things moving for everyone else, but he’ll do it even when posting is regular. Example: we were fighting a Medusa one time and when it became clear we couldn’t beat her in combat, I starting trying to negotiate with her - we would do word-of-mouth advertising for her sculpting business in exchange for whatever it was we needed from her at the time. The negotiating seemed to be working, when all of a sudden, he switches our approach with no warning whatsoever about why he’s doing that or what he’s thinking. I am not necessarily opposed to changing tactics midstream if there’s a good reason for it, but I do mind having things changed on me like that without warning or a chance to say I don’t agree with it. (Some of his ideas are good, others not so much, and I can usually pick out the unworkable ones.) So I asked him, “Please don’t change things like that again in the future unless you give some warning first and we talk about it if needed. Don’t make decisions about things that aren’t yours to make.” He’s a little better about not deciding things that aren’t his to decide, but he still springs changes on us without warning. I’d have to say non-existent communication is his one of biggest overall weaknesses.
3. He tends to order people around like he’s God Almighty or something. I told him, “I am not your slave. If there’s something you want from me, ASK me, don’t order me”. He still tends to order me around, though he is maybe a little better.
These things might seem somewhat minor, but after all the other crap I’ve put up with, I’m fed up. (!!!)
1. He constantly brags and boasts about what a great guy he is. Ick. Lately, he’s been a little better about this.
2. Communication with him is super dysfunctional. We can’t talk for long without one of us misunderstanding something the other one said. To me, his writing is often murky and hard to understand, even after I ask for clarification.
3. He has this need to argue about EVERYTHING. I am never allowed to be right about anything that actually matters to me. He might allow me to be right about some rinky-dink small thing.
4. He’s generally not responsive to constructive criticism. Maybe every once in a blue moon he might. He DID finally stop blabbing our characters’ confidential business (we are fugitives from the law wanted for the murder of a Queen we didn’t actually murder) to every Tom, Dick, and Harry NPC we meet.
5. He really doesn’t do mutuality or teamwork, except that he’s a pretty good conversationalist if all you want is some light, superficial conversation.
6. He’s bossy and at times, extremely overbearing. He doesn’t say please or thank you for the most part, either. Maybe once in a blue moon.
7. If he apologizes at all, it’s underwhelming. More of a “I’m going to say the minimum possible so I can say I apologized, but I don’t give a damn about actually making anything better” sort of thing.
8. He refuses to sit down and have a conversation about how to make things better for all of us.
9. He acts like he believes he’s the be-all-end-all source of everything good and right in the world and everyone else is just the disgusting scum he happens to condescend to spending time with, and boy should we be thanking him for it. No. We should be WORSHIPPING him for the honor! :D
10. He is completely incapable of seeing any situation from someone else’s point of view, and especially not mine.
11. He has this need to constantly play the hero, even if you want to try your strength and don’t actually want to BE rescued. You MUST accept rescue from him because he will accept no other role except the one where he acts heroically. It’s yet another example of how he completely steamrolls people when they try to tell him no.
After writing all of this, I SO can’t wait to lose this guy!
I have a really fun play-by-post homebrew campaign I’m doing, but there is another player I’m having some trouble with. We are extreme opposites in personality type, and he does not believe in compromise or sitting down like adults and talking about what each of us needs to have fun and seeking win-win solutions so both of us can enjoy ourselves and have fun. I don’t know why. - he doesn’t communicate about what the block is for him, he just refuses to answer anytime I ask him to talk with me. The GM also doesn’t want to get involved in our conflict - I think maybe he fears conflict, and so doesn’t mediate any. We’ve limped along together for four years, but things got so bad between us a few months back that I finally decided to quit, even though I really like the campaign.
My GM offered to let me run a solo adventure once I officially leave the party, and because I DO really like the campaign, I agreed. (My cohort character needs to finish a crafting project before I officially leave - just 1.5 in-game days left!)
One of the problems I have with this guy is he’s a boundary buster. That is to say, if I ask him to please not do something, he does it anyway. Nearly every flaming time! To some extent, he comes by it honestly. His Meyers-Briggs personality type is ENTP, also known as the Visionary, and ENTPs are drawn to breaking barriers for the sake of doing things that have never been done before. The problem is A) he massively overestimates his social skills. His social skills aren’t awful, they just aren’t anywhere near as good as he makes them out to be. B) He thinks that having good intentions gives him the right to completely ignore what other people want/need and to tell them how how to live their lives. As I said earlier, he refuses to compromise, even a little. His personality is somewhat dominant, and as far as I can tell, he’s the only extrovert in our group.
I’ve dealt with boundary busters before, and you pretty much have to be able to enforce your no, because they won’t get the point any other way. The nature of our campaign is such that I can’t completely disconnect from the original party, but I can limit contact with them quite a bit, and I want to be ready for the times I have to deal with Mr. No-doesn’t-apply-to-me.
With all of that as background, that brings me to what I need from you all. My character is going to be acquiring a ship and I want to put an enchantment on it that will keep his character out, so I have one place I know I can get away from him. His character is a fairy who has a custom template for her racial details, but falls under Fey as a race. Her size is diminutive, so she’s hard to hit. She is an arcane trickster, and I think she”s a rogue/sorcerer as opposed to a bard/sorcerer. She has Fey bloodline. She is level 8 or 9 overall, and there are also 4 levels in fairy she can gain as well that grant her abilities like invisibility at-will and underwater breathing. I don’t know how many levels she has of fairy and rogue, but I think her sorcerer level is pretty low - 1 or 2.
I’m not opposed to hearing other solutions if anyone has a thought, but I would like to avoid PvP if at all possible.
Ok, I'm not trying to be difficult here, honest! I'm just trying to come up with an effective character concept, and I find that easiest to do when I have a high-level sense of what the campaign setting is. It doesn't need to be more specific than "You'll be spending a lot of time at sea" or "You're going to be in the cold." I'd be inclined to guess that this campaign is jungle-based, but that's a BIG guess.
For a sea-based campaign, I'd put some skill ranks into Profession (Sailor) and maybe Craft (Ships) for doing repairs. For a cold-based campaign, I'd want a way to get Endure Elements and maybe some equipment for handling the cold. I don't even know what I'd need for a jungle campaign, though I could research that.
My concern in this case is that if I have a character with an animal - either a mount or an animal companion - I don't want to be told, "Hey, you need to leave your animal outside" if we're going to be spending all of our time in the Blakros Museum. I know animals are PFS legal, but I don't know if they are a good fit for this campaign.
My character will be 1st level, for whatever that's worth. If I go with a Paladin, the character will be small so she can ride a medium sized mount. The druid or bard would be medium sized.
Sooo....can you please help this poor PFS newbie out here? Thanks.
Can you tell me a bit about the setting of this campaign? I'm assuming we'll be in the Mwangi Expanse, but will we be outdoors or in the Blackros Museum for most of the campaign? I like Rangers and Druids due to their connection to nature, but I find both of them more fun to play when outdoors.
Also, what's your position on evil characters in the party? I am also considering creating a Paladin for something different, but they do not travel with evil characters except if they can advance the greater good somehow. I'll bow to your position, whatever it is - if you are okay with evil characters, I'll create something else.
Finally - are we using background skills? I couldn't find anything about that in the PFS rules.
Dotting. I have never played a PFS game, but have my PFS number and have even rolled up a few characters in PFS style. Will return here with the details, as I forget which are Core and which are PFS.
Ok, clarification to offer. The shorter list is part of an alternate rule system, so I’ll avoid that. But my question about whether gestures are still required for spells on the main list still stands.
I’m a little bit confused about the rules for mesmerists. I’m trying to put together a character who is a low-level Monster, specifically a dweomercat cub, which has high CHA and Dex. We don’t get to roll stats, we have to take what’s in the bestiary entry as her stats and go from there. Her STR is terrible, so I’m thinking some kind of spontaneous caster. I thought it would be awkward for her to try to cast spells that have a gestural components since she walks on 4 legs, and when I saw that mesmerists can cast some spells without having to include somatic components even if those are required in the spell’s entry, I was immediately interested in it as a class for this character. However, there seem to be two different mesmerist spell lists, a shorter list that is labeled “psychic spells” and the normal mesmerist list, which includes stuff from the wizard/sorcerer/bard lists.
Which list does the ‘no somatic or verbal components required’ rule apply to, only the list that is specifically psychic spells, only the regular list, or both lists?
Sorry if this is a newbie question, it’s just not really clear to me. I appreciate any help this community can offer!
Interested. I'd love to play some kind of aquatic monster, but obviously that won't fit with every AP. I'll check in periodically to see what you ultimately decide!
I am familiar with Pathfinder and know how to roll up a character. I am interested in participating in PFS pbp games, and I have my PFS ID, but I am brand new to PFS. I thought I'd roll up maybe 3 characters and then try to find a campaign and pick the one that seems like the best fit.
I have found a lot of information about getting started, but there are a few questions remaining that I can't seem to find answers to. I'm hoping you folks here can help me, because I can't proceed with rolling up a character until question 1 gets answered.
1. The PFS Character Creation guide constantly references the Core Rulebook (CRB), the Hero's Handbook (HH), and the Player Pack (PP) in terms of determining certain things. I know where to find the CRB online, and I found the PP, but the only place I can seem to find the HH is in the Beginner Box. I looked at the Beginner Box and am hoping to not have to purchase it because as a pbp player, I have no need for for anything except the HH. I am more than happy to pay for a copy of the HH if need be. Is there a way I can either get hold of a copy of the HH or else pay for a copy of just the HH alone? I can't proceed with character creation until I know what things from the CRB are not allowed, and it also looks like my starting equipment should be taken from the HH and PP.
2. Does PFS play make use of regional or campaign traits? I can find other traits if need be, but if these are legal, I'd like to look through them and see if anything pops out at me.
3. This is probably a silly question, but when I look at other players' online character profiles, I often see a reference to something called SQ. What does that stand for, and what sorts of things go into that slot?
Thanks a ton for any help you can give me with these questions!
