Good question, Alternate heritages include the things like the Aasimar tables (the ones with things like Angel-blooded, Azata-blooded, etc.) and the oddball versions of Oread. Pretty much, you get the standard version of the race you pick.
Alternate race traits on the other hand are entirely acceptable.
Wow this thread got a lot longer over the weekend!
What about the human alt. racial "Dual Talent," which gives them 2 +2s in any at the cost of the bonus feat and Skilled? It's similar enough to the above I figured I should ask.
You're using the feat tax variant, and we can now move our rolled scores around - are those the only creation changes, or did I miss one?
Shopping-Fu, indeed. Finished everything up, with all of 5.5lbs of capacity left between everyone, and 4.25 gp.
Food:
Should Malphite be selected, the party can look forward to the following delicious meals:
60 Bird Feed, 15 Animal Feed, 15 Jars Travel Cake Mix, 30 Wandermeals, 10 Powdered Milks, 30 Trail Rations, 10lbs Flour, 4 Jars Maple Syrup, 5 Jars Honey, 1lb Allspice, 10lbs Beans, 5lbs Citrus, 10lbs Coffee Beans, 6lbs Garlic, 5lbs Tea Leaves, 10lbs Salt, 30lbs Potatos, 30lbs Turnips
I did have to fudge the tea leaves - they aren't in fact listed. But a cup of tea is twice as expensive as a cup of coffee, so I charged twice as much for the pounds of leaves.
She also has a coffee pot, tea kettle, and a waffle iron. Hope someone has Profession: Cook!
Campaign Info has been updated with creation rules.
If I forgot something, please let me know.
Sbodd wrote:
There are several wikis that have details on these Dwarves if you'd like to look up more about them - but you don't have to, you can make some random other location and just use "normal" Dwarves, as you'd like.
GM Mowque wrote:
I won't hold you to hosting a game for me, as well, unless you particularly want to! However, that won't be a quality of selection for this. If your character is appealing and we can come to a decision, I wouldn't be averred to running this twice - but I'll get to that when we get there.
As far as Brigh or anything else obscure, I'm 100% okay with all of that. Paizo has a lot of material, and so frequently very little of it actually sees use. I enjoy seeing things I haven't seen before.
E: If you would like to see any of the other variant rules Paizo has released being used (Stamina, Equipment Tricks, Skill Unlocks, etc), make a note of that and I'll check it out - I like most of them, but to include everything right off the bat is not only a bit much, but might also be dissuading to people not intimately familiar with all of the options. The only one I know I do not wish to use is the Hero Points system.
Likewise, if you'd like to be Mythic, I would consider that as well - though your "moment of ascension" will come in-game - just note that, as well as what path you'd likely take.
I will be at work for the next...roughly 12 hours, and then a family thing and work again tomorrow as I wake up. I haven't finished her equipment - but the tabs I have open include maple syrup and powdered milk - so it's really just down to me figuring out the most efficient way to stock with the space I have left.
I Talk A Lot:
As a note about the food-mule, I don't want to imply that Malphite knows she's going to eat it - but she does know that she may just have to. Consciously she knows she has very little memory, but she has been wandering around for at least a few months, all the way from the border of Irrisen. Subconsciously, she knows she's actually been wandering around extreme arctic conditions for years, since she didn't actually die after being in Russia, Baba Yaga just mystically reset her XP bar and wiped her memories. I may have her start to get some back - depends on how much the party interacts with each other as we do this.
And a note to the players, should I be selected: Malphite isn't going to just decide to eat you...casually, anyway...just because the supply runs out. Nor is she some barbarian demihuman who'll just (though again, casually - if it gets bad enough, sure) eat the corpse of whatever we just killed. But, like above, she knows she is going to explore danger somewhere not really close, and the GM gods only know for how long. I like having a bunch of equipment and supplies and stuff, she is just getting prepared for anything.
I looked up her mental stats after the sociopath note. Int 10 - "Knows what they need to know to get by." Wis 10 - "Capable of planning and makes reasoned decisions most of the time." Cha 8 - "Something of a bore or makes people mildly uncomfortable." I think that all fits. She might need someone with some Int to tell her that a particular beast's flesh is toxic, but she knows enough to chunk it off and overcook it to avoid modern-knowledge bad stuff (parasites, bacteria etc) - and wouldn't have qualms with doing so to stay alive.
Best of luck to everyone! Hope to see some of you in discussion, and any of you in other games!
One point shy of the 25 buy, so let's bump that Dex up to 9.
Will have to ponder on this, but my initial thought is some species of Monk - Dex be damned.
When you say -
"No alternate heritages."
- do you mean things like the Aasimar tables, or the three oddball versions of Oread? Or, do you mean any alternate racial traits at all?
@Mystic Ankh - You quoted an article with the words acid feces in it! Now that's a spell that draws some aggro.
Doesn't that just sound nasty? Both in real life and as a spell, it's not something I think I would ever like to see.
Nairb the Grey wrote:
I also need to know how mad you are expecting PETA to get at you. (...) Somewhere between 1 and 5 is a happy medium that might work.
Also be aware ahead of time, if you take live chickens into a dungeon I will be giving you an additional automatic penalty on any stealth check.
All very fair. I was in fact going to be a terrible monster and overcrowd them - I hadn't really given consideration to their living conditions, as I figured with 6 people I'd use two chickens per meal, with maybe two days between. Thought about saving 4 until Mid-Month's Dinner (which is what I've named the mule OOC - she isn't going to be caring for it like Murfey, and probably won't ever bother to call it anything in-character) serves his purpose for the occasional egg, but that's okay. I'll go with 3 per cage for a middle balance.
Nairb the Grey wrote:
You can't shush a chicken.
The finale of M.A.S.H. would disagree with you.
Probably shouldn't look that up if you don't already know it though.
Hello. I came to the boards recently, looking to get my nerd imaginative fantasy fix satiated after having largely been out of RPGs for about four years. Posting history is important here, however, and I have none - something I would like to remedy. It was suggested that a good way to build a count is to run a game - and that made sense. Browsing through here, I saw a couple of people run solo/duo games, and feel like that would be fun and intimate, allowing me to get back into the swing of things while also telling a nice story.
I would like to recruit one - or two - player(s) to join me in a largely Theater of the Mind vignette, "Quest for the Stone."
A traumatic event has recently come to pass, and your character sets off to carve their gladringgar into the deepest part of the Darklands they can muster, to cope with their emotions.
I only have a few rules for now - I'll flesh out full character requirements should there be interest.
- We will start at level 6 - probably end at 10.
- Your character must be a Dwarf, or a Dwarf Blooded Oread, raised in and following Dwarven traditions. I would consider an Adopted character from another race, but your presentation will have to be exceptional. In the case of an Oread, you may take the Dwarf Blooded feat, or this new alternate racial trait (but you must have one or the other, or both):
Mostly Dwarven:
A few oreads have appearances much closer to those of their dwarf ancestors; in fact, they may not even realize their true race. Such geniekin appear to be dwarven, save perhaps minor features like unusual eye color, and they count as humanoid (dwarf) as well as outsider (native) for all purposes (such as humanoid-affecting spells such as charm person or enlarge person). These geniekin do not automatically gain their associated elemental language (but may select it as a bonus language if their Intelligence is high enough), gaining Dwarven in its place. This ability alters the geniekin’s type, subtype, and languages.
- I will only accept two applicants if you apply as a pair, with a shared background.
- I do not care where you are from, or what you have done - so long as you live with other dwarves in a community of dwarves. There are ample areas in Golarion with different varieties of Dwarf detailed - your application will likely appeal to me more if, say, you're from the Mwangi Expanse and the Taralu dwarves, rather than if you're just another resident of Five King's. Extra bonus points if you're not from the focused areas of Avistan/Northern Garund, and you'd have fairly open creative license to make those dwarves as you'd like - but you will also have to tell me what makes them different from the standard, and how they ended up where they are.
- That is not to say this is unimportant, only that you could be from anywhere. Tell me your story. I know what will happen to your character from this point forward, but the experience will be better for everyone if you're invested in the character as a living, evolving line of text person. The level of detail presented, and the general appeal of the character, are the primary factors by which I'll make my decision.
- I will use third party archetypes only, and only on a case-by-case basis. I'm behind enough with my Paizo material, I do not have the time to learn other systems right now, and I'm not familiar enough with the other publishers to know if their content is balanced or suffering from 3.5 Syndrome. Otherwise anything Paizo is acceptable without scrutiny.
- The "traumatic event" will not happen until gameplay starts, so don't write one for me.
- Probably one post/two days. I want lengthy expositions between us, not bumper text and die rolls. (Almost) Every combat will have meaning, and when it is serious I'll provide a map - but otherwise this is all in our heads and as words, so I would prefer those interested in flexing their wordsmith muscles over numerical munchkins.
That's all for now. When/if a few people express interest, I'll fill out the Campaign Info with creation guidelines.
Final few points - I'll have nothing left to add after this other than to say "I'm finished shopping" so hopefully this'll be my final post before you make your decision.
Not Really Spoilers:
I enjoy having a theme song for my characters - it helps me to refine their personalities if I can find a song to focus my thoughts that also fits the character. Initially I had selected FFVIII OST - The Landing(at Dollet) - I was looking for heavy drums and "unstoppable" feelings. The more I thought about it, though, that song was a bit too fast-paced for Malphite - in that scene of the game, they're launching an amphibious assault on an island, and while we're certainly about to have way, way more than our share of battles, it's not "impending doom" urgent, nor does Malphite's existence at all cry of "rushing." As such, I've opted instead for Boléro composed by Maurice Ravel. Folk legend has it that, at one performance of the piece, a woman in the audience was sent into a fit, crying that Ravel was a "madman" and abruptly and loudly leaving the concert hall. If you aren't familiar with it, I'd recommend giving it a listen; it's often said to have a sound evoking a loping camel ride through the desert at night, but in any event, I do believe it perfectly reflects the personality and history of Malphite (at least, this particular incarnation of the Shard). Constant, repeating, changing only slightly, while persisting ever on.
I'm down to something like 70 gold, and buying food. I believe I will in fact purchase a mule, but for far less altruistic reasons than the pony - it is going to carry the large* sacks of food until the supply runs low enough to not overburden Murfey, and then we're going to butcher and eat it (provided the monsters don't beat us to the punch!). I may also have chickens in two Small** cages depending on how much weight the mule will have left.
*So, donkeys, mules, and ponies are Medium, and since Medium races are the typical choice and Med. can't ride Med., it makes sense that a "day's" worth of feed would be geared to the Large horse. Can I feed a Medium animal half of a bag/day? Realistically, even for a draft horse, 10lbs of oats is quite a lot of food.
If it is only possible to feed one time per day, you should NEVER exceed 5 lbs. per meal for a 1350 lb horse, or 4 lbs per meal for smaller horses. Feeding more per meal than this can lead to undigested starch passing though to the large intestine and disrupting the digestive system (gas, colic, acid feces).
The amount they recommend for a fattish, lazy horse is 3.3 - 4.4 lbs per day, with an up to 50% increase for high activity animals. And we're not talking about horses, we're talking about a pony.
**Mechanically, PCs are either Small or Medium, and they're built with very minimal differences in relative size compared to the other categorical steps. A Small/Medium cage is 60lbs, but note that "(o)ne cage holds one animal of that size, or five animals of a smaller size" - and this is not true of the Small<->Medium relationship. Again, from the perspective of game balance and PCs, I get why they're the same size, but they shouldn't be. I don't want to stick two Human-sized cages on the sides of a mule, but I wouldn't mind sticking two cages half of that size on there. Can I buy a "true Small" cage that weighs 30 pounds? It's for chickens, not for people, and I wouldn't even mind paying the full 15gp price of the book version for it.
I chose to un-Agile the breastplate rather than remove the silver from the gandasa- Malphite would have to practically strip to fall to a light load, and the Agile quality of the armor doesn't mitigate the medium load ACP, so it seemed senseless (although on another point of "I get it but I don't like it," requiring Dex 15 for TWF makes her far more nimble and flexible than I want her to be - for balance, it makes sense, but on a 4'7" 203lb half-rockmonster with 18 Str, that puts the character firmly in the "Superhuman" camp, which I don't enjoy). I may however also get the refund on the alchemical silver - which would then leave me with just two: a gauntlet and a machete. Everything else but the greatsword is Cold Iron, however, but it's cheaper to do, and if you're worried about it for balance-breaking issues, I have no qualms stripping it from the majority of the weapons and shopping some more! I do assure you that I have no knowledge of this thing but what you've given us, and am not trying to meta-game by bringing all of this cold iron - it just makes me feel better about having all the money if I make it a bit wasteful.
I am not feeling particularly inspired at the moment, but I may write up a small vignette in-lieu of expounding on her backstory more. I have no history on these boards - though I have been playing Pathfinder since the beta PHB, it was largely with the same group of friends, until about four years ago when I moved and my family responsibilities changed. I have been in a free-form WoW RP on a forum for about 8 years now, so I understand the format, and the crawl of time. If selected, I would not be opposed to two posts/day during the times of intense combat (so probably most of them), with one/day to none on the weekends and greater time allowed during the roleplay moments. This obviously only would work if everyone's time zones and general availability to post are roughly the same (we've tried to have real-time events on the Warcraft board a few times now, rarely to great success - it's not easy to schedule people spread across the world with actual lives to deal with, too) - just noting that, if I don't have to take the time to draft up RP and it's mostly just descriptive action and rolls, I could probably make a morning and an evening action.
Thank you for your consideration! And best of luck to us all!
Edit: I Forgot Something Important:
I will highlight this more in the vignette if I can, but I'm also going to swap her background skill in Know:Engi to Linguistics - and give her Ancient Azlanti as a language. Since this is from 3.5, there's no chance to have to use that language, and I've already justified why she would know it with her background - which, honestly, was an easier way to do it than any I can think of now if I wanted to have a "normal" character history on Golarion. I also only took Engineering because of a lack of anything more fitting to her character, until I thought of this earlier today. Let me know if it'll be a problem for any reason.
I appreciate you being upfront about it. I am generally leery of rule tweaks, but I don't see anything particularly problematic here.
Text Shrinker:
I hate messing with things without a need to - and with more than a decade of Pathfinder material published, there's usually not a need to. But that Raven...to serve as the entire Paladin Order that would otherwise have trained a neophyte, as well as being some kind of face for Abadar in this weird tangent of his faith, it should be something special. Emissary is bunk unless it hits higher levels, and with the raven's progression ending forever at 1 without blowing a feat, it wouldn't even be able to communicate with Eswain (technically it could, since it's a Raven and can speak, but with Int 6 and no "special language" which I always assumed implied a very contextual and simplified form of communication (Children of Tama from the iconic TNG episode "Darmok," anyone?), it wouldn't be a very good teacher). I wanted it to be different somehow, and this is what I came up with.
Likewise, while we're starting with Burnt Offerings, it doesn't seem like you'll continue down Runelords like she was designed around. It makes little difference initially - I still want to focus her more on the Paladin aspect than the Druid, but as the other application was for replacement players, and one of the current was also a Druid, I was never going to look back at it again. While I still wouldn't want to progress Druid any further (unless I need to for the following), I may consider some weird Prestige Class, or even another dip into a primary class, if I were selected - depending on the comp of the rest of the group by the time that would happen. Paladins are great in RotRL, but not always so well-fit for the enemies you fight - this may make her fall behind the rest of the group, something I'm personally fine with and wouldn't ret-con away, but may adjust with future decisions if it gets too bad (like not taking the second Boon Companion and starting on actual combat feats instead).
There was at least one other point of recent lore for her that didn't get copied over above - well, didn't get elaborated, really. The two goats on her sheet both recently gave birth to twin kids, and all four of the kids had the distinct key-shape of Abadar's holy symbol marked on their haunches. One of the reasons Ezakien Tobyn was so well-loved in Sandpoint was that, despite his status as a Desnian, he served as an excellent High Priest for the interfaith shrine, never steering the faithful of another deity to favor his own, but allowing them to believe as they wished. Eswain has been devoted to the worship of Abadar since she became "civilized," recognizing that his teachings - and indeed, civilization itself - are what saved her from a life of potential madness and a very early death; as such, she spent a great many hours in the chapel conversing with the Cleric, and she immediately recognizes the symbols on the kids as a portent of some change. She brought the mothers under the auspices of selling the wool, but really, she wants to ask Father Zantus to examine them and get his opinion of the omen, coming to respect him and his interfaith welcomeness as much as she had Tobyn.
She would also be on good terms with Daviren Hosk personally - it was she, not some family member, who helped him fight the goblins. Sanpoint was "founded" by the Chelaxians in 4666 - if this is 4707, that was only 41 years ago, and Eswain is about 32; she's probably around Daviren's age herself (after all Ameiko buys the Rusty Dragon to "retire" at only 19), and even if she had a detailed geneology to go from, she would have probably been alive for the stated goblin fight, and the vague "familiar debt" doesn't make sense in that scenario.
I'm not exceptionally inspired tonight, so it's unlikely I'll flesh out her backstory more before you make selections later on today. It would mostly just be better prose, with maybe a single "RP example" thrown in to break up the narration - her story is all there already. Malthus (as in the Ghost of Malthus, emissary of Abadar who is said to appear to warn of impending plague) has been with Eswain her entire life - he watched from a distance when Mvasti broke her feral side, but accompanied the woman from the time of her mysterious (and still unknown) birth. He's no normal bird, after all - though I don't actually want him to be the Malthus of Abadar lore, I didn't figure it would hurt to name him after it, since it's not likely at all to come into play.
Also, as this is -not- Runelords, you're free to have surprises from her past come back to get her - I don't know where she came from, nor have any notions about her origin, since it wouldn't have mattered in an AP. You're welcome to make something up should she be selected and you feel it would be an appropriate event - perhaps she is a Shyka dispossessed of her powers and memories, or maybe she is the lost child of Count Ranalc and Nyrissa, appearing in this century since time is wonky in the First World. Maybe she's just a human, too - I'll not ask again and just let it play out, should I be selected.
I am new to these boards - I have however been part of a freeform World of Warcraft forum-based RP for the last 8 years, and have been playing Pathfinder and 3.5 before for something like 16 years. My life is relatively stable now, so I do not forsee any problems in maintaining a regular posting rate for years. Depending on my work schedule, which varies slighty each week, I should be able to make two full-length posts a day - I'm also a single dad, however, so sometimes they may have to be brief from mobile if he interrupts my usual downtime. I would be willing to commit to weekend posts as well - I do not have a M-F 9-5, so there's really little difference to me in the days of the week.
E: I like having a theme song for my characters - I've also changed hers from what I originally had listed (Antonín Dvořák - Symphony No. 9: From the New World (Movement 4)) to Brave New World by Iron Maiden. While the Dvořák piece is one of my favorites, it's too powerful for vague unknown threats. I knew what was coming in Runelords - Dvořák fit the epic battle for one's homeland. Maiden, however, fits her general theme better - and we may never have Gargantuan monsters sacking our city, so I'd rather have the song reflect her rather than her situation.
A good weaponrack saddle bag will run you 30 gold and 10 lbs
Awesome - cheaper and lighter, I'll take it!
Many words makes screen long:
Honestly I stop being this particular about it after creation - I'll pocket the 12 potions when I only have 1 lb of carry cap. left even though I still run with the old " '-' actually means 1/10th of a pound and 50 coins is also a pound," only really checking if the party tries to gather mad loots or carry a throne or something similar. It just bugs me - I also get bothered by the standard game mechanic of "pick up a feather and your speed drops to nothing," same as you, but there's just something...wrong about not fitting into the guidelines before the game even starts. Especially in a case like mine, where unless someone else took a similar trait I have 6x the amount of cash as the highest possible other start.
If you want to get real weird with it - look at the Masterwork Backpack. You treat your Str as 1 higher for carry weight, but shouldn't that only apply to the poundage in the pack? It's not helping your armor weigh less, after all...And why are saddlebags given a capacity in pounds, when a pack is cubic feet? And if they can attach cages for familiars, water bladders, and weapon racks, why didn't they make the holding area larger?
Here There Be Weapons:
How would someone even strap a giant hammer or a battleaxe to them? I've imagined wire hammer-sheathes before that hold the head, especially on the big ones - but I really can't picture how it would ever be possible - a simple string loop would work on smaller weapons, but not at all on the large. Maybe that's one of the reason behind the "fighter making sneak attack" jokes - not only is his armor noisy, he gongs with each step as his hammer mallets into his back.
I broke her sheet up by weapon location in both the stat box and in the equipment box. And I'll do it again here, too!
Armor, helm and gauntlets are "intrinsic" weapons - she is always wearing them (and will probably never use them anyway).
She carries the shield - it's more efficient to drop it and pick it up again than to try to store it and redraw it, provided you don't move too far away from the square you left it in.
The longbow and Lucerne Hammer are on her back - again, not sure how you casually slide a two-handed hammer-pick on your back, but I don't have much choice but to suspend disbelief to that end.
On the left half of her belt, I put the gandasa, the warhammer, and a beltpouch. I see the pouch (which would only weigh 1lb if I hadn't stuffed six Sunrods for her shield in there) as going down the front of her leg, the warhammer's head sitting on her hip, and the gandasa's head at a slight diagonal just before her buttocks. I was going to put the machete there, but I read the gandasa's description - it's a dagger on a two-foot stick, it would take up no horizontal space, only slapping into her leg occasionally with the vertical stick. She would draw the warhammer with her right hand, and drop the shield to draw the gandasa from behind the blade with her left.
On the right half of her belt, I put the quivver slung similar to the gandasa, and the loop for the heavy pick - this and the shield are her primary hand items for a while.
I found the bandolier after you brought up daggers, and it gave me another idea. I see that as 4 slots above where they will cross, and 4 below, for both sides - 16 daggers in total. These use the same action as getting an object from your back, so they're ostensibly tied or something - it takes a provoking move action to get one.
So on the bandolier going from her left shoulder to her right hip, I put the light hammer and light pick. This is a 3lb hammer, and this is a 2lb...well brick hammer, but it looks like their version of battle picks. Swap the densities around a bit and they're the weapons. I can stick them on the outside of the pack just as easily, but since I "used" 5/8 slots (based on poundage), I figured it might be okay.
On the bandolier from her right shoulder to left hip, I put the machete (it's just a big dagger anyway), and six more Sunrods. Says they're a foot long and weigh a pound, so I picture them as small pieces of rebar - they're bunched together and just tied to the loops. Changing the Sunrod in the shield boss would take two full rounds, so it isn't anything about hurrying and more about a convenient spot in-universe.
The greatsword, glaive-guisarme, earthbreaker, and pickaxe are on the new saddlebags.
Using ABP, can I use bracers as my armor advancement?
d20pfsrd wrote:
The character can attune herself to one suit of armor or one shield in her possession; she can change that attunement once per day. If she selects a normal set of clothing as her armor, it counts as having a starting enhancement bonus of +0. The attuned suit of armor gains a +1 enhancement bonus at 4th level.
Will we be ignoring the masterwork rule for magic items under ABP or will that work itself out?
d20pfsrd wrote:
The character can attune herself to any one weapon in her possession
Emphasis mine. I've used ABP a lot - I apologize if I'm stepping on toes by answering here, but I've asked many of these questions myself. Also, answering "yes" to above automatically makes it a "yes" here, since you can't have masterwork clothing.
Warpriest Fun:
Since y'all had some fun revelations about the class, let me share another one. Dwarf Warpriest with the Ancestral Weapon Mastery feat.
That Feat wrote:
You’re proficient with all of your race’s racial weapons. If you’re already proficient with any of those weapons, you instead gain Weapon Focus for one of those weapons as a bonus feat. Furthermore, if you gain Weapon Focus as a bonus feat with one of your racial weapons as a result of this feat, you can change which racial weapon your bonus Weapon Focus feat applies to by engaging in 10 minutes of practice with the new weapon. The benefits of this bonus Weapon Focus feat last until you choose to practice and apply it to a different racial weapon.
Emphasis mine again. So now with 10 minutes (something you could easily finagle in the middle of a dungeon with some creative RP), you can gain the benefits of Sacred Weapon with that gigantic list of racial Dwarf weapons and have the sneaky rogue tell you which one you should use against whatever is in the next room.
They do have coffee beans and potatos on a table - The Monolith only knows what I had to make up before, but it was some kind of food thing, just literally none of the ones I mentioned. Since that's the case, the only thing I'd need GM ruling on (so far anyway) would be the Weapon Rack Saddlebags in my last post. Also, I did replace Alchemical Silver with Cold Iron on the glaive-guisarme; needed that extra loot for the pony.
E: Also, for anyone who's having trouble grasping the point of ABP, maybe this will help.
The Big Six:
So there are six basic types of magic items that it's expected mechanically for players to acquire (or spend magical resources to replicate, which are then replaced by other magic expenses like Staves) as they level - the wealth system is as much of a power curve as class abilites and feats, and taking away magic items throws off the game's balance a lot. These items - their ABP replacements - and what they provide, are:
1: Magic Weapon - Weapon Attunement - Hit and damage and special abilities
2: Magic Armor - Armor Attunement - Armor to AC and special abilities
3: Cloak of Resistance - Resistance - Save increases
4: Headbands and Belts - Mental and Physical Prowess - Ability increases
5: Ring of Protection - Deflection - Deflection to AC
6: Amulet of Natural Armor - Toughening - Natural Armor to AC
They're identical in what they provide - ABP is just more rigid in what you get than traditional loot tables, but so can be a realistic GM who won't let you visit MagicMart while you're fighting pirates in the middle of the ocean.
With simple splitting modifications like discussed (giving a bonus to an animal companion/eidolon, or dual-wielding), you can replicate a lot of the standard buys. This dungeon is odd in-and-of-itself, but the way it's designed make sense for ABP - however, the system is typically for low magic campaigns, so your party can still keep up with the monsters without needing to buy the Big Six.
Backpacks of all varieties hold 2 cubic feet of stuff. A handy converter tells me 2cu.ft.= 125 lbs. This seems about right - I know I can fit 125 pounds on the inside of my external frame pack. Saddlebags hold 20lbs to a side - so in total they're 1/3 the size of a backpack, with 1/6 on each side. It makes sense, as saddlebags are just meant to hold some of the rider's belongings, not a load of gear - that's what pack saddles are for.
A weapon rack backpack can hold 4 weapons. "Allies adjacent to you can retrieve a weapon from the rack as a move action without provoking attacks of opportunity, as if they were simply drawing a weapon." This also fits with what you said earlier, though the specifics of whether it provokes an AoO or not were left unstated. If you'd rule that it did not, provided, as you said, I kept it organized, then I'll just "attach" them to the outside of a pack saddle. If it would provoke, as retrieving a stored item typically would, then I'd propose:
Weapon Rack Saddlebags
14 lbs | 34 gp
Instead of normal saddlebags, these straps have small racks capable of holding two weapons per side of an animal; these may be retrieved by adjacent creatures as a Move Action that does not provoke Attacks of Opportunity.
A weapon rack backpack is 2.5 times the weight of a standard one, and is 12.5x more expensive. I duplicated this in the cost/weight above - I then took away 1/3 of these values from losing the storage space, rounded down.
Next.
I envision a normal backpack as being akin to the larger ones I used to carry to school as a kid (which I think they banned because they hurt our backs? Something like that). They get stuffed full of things, and just loop around your shoulders without distributing any weight. A masterwork backpack, on the other hand, I picture as a typical external frame hiking backpack. There are the two shoulder straps, but also one that goes around the chest and another about the waist. These straps (especially the chest) pull the pack to the carrier's body, better distributing the weight. And they can get heavy - I had a 1/4" zip tie attached to mine for hanging in the garage, and it snapped on me one night camping, as I had used it to hang my full pack from one of those lantern hooks. Scared the bejesezus out of me, and made me realize just how heavy it had to be.
Whereas it's a free action to simply drop something, like sliding a book bag off of one's shoulder, it does not make sense for one to be able to undo several buckles (today, sure, since they're plastic clips, but in Pathfinder, they'd be old-school buckles on very thick leather so as not to snap) in essentially fractions of a second. However, once you used both hands to undo the belt strap, it would be a fairly simple affair to undo the chest strap with a single hand while using the other to guide the bag off your shoulders - that sounds like a Move Action amount of time to me, if you can flip your pack around and pull something out from the stuffed mess in that amount of time.
Condensed: Would Move be the appropriate action for dropping a Masterwork Backpack?
I haven't done the produce yet, but I can already tell I'm running out of gold - I'll be un-special-ing some of the more expensive weapons (like that glaive-guisarme) to pick up a bit more money, particularly if we use the new item above.
E: Oh, also - do you count the weight of worn clothing against a character's capacity? Some people don't - I personally do. I know you said you weren't going to be restrictive on carrying capacity, but, well, you see me and how...specific I'm getting - I might need those 8 lbs to not count officially for my own sanity ;)
I'm at work at the moment, and was saving this until I did some math - but I was considering asking for "weapon rack saddlebags" much like the backpack, but for the pony. I'll get back to you with that and the rest of her equipment in the relatively near future.
That being said, I probably wouldn't change too much if we drop ABP. While the functionality of mundane weaponry generally falls off pretty rapidly, the idea was to have one of each type - a reach weapon, a two handed weapon, the one-handed weapon, and a light weapon each of bludgeoning piercing and slashing. The special materials are honestly just a gold sink, so if we did strip the game of ABP, I will probably just go down to one or two cold iron and alchemical silver and buy a portion or six - or cheap wondrous items.
E; Also I make copious use of "drop" when I do this sort of thing - always have to have the GM decide on the action to drop a masterwork backpack - I usually advocate for Move - so I can tromp along at near-max load and then fall to a medium when I ditch the pack.
I am...confused and aroused and a little bit intimidated at Mystic Anhk's proficiency at Shopping-Fu. I thought I knew how to Pathfinder. =p
I usually just do this first and ask permission later (since it's rarely denied), but as you brought it up...
GM, I'll break down my mundane equipment into a big list so you can see exactly where the gold goes - do you mind if I do the extrapolation of certain products myself and let you agree to it after? For example, bags of coffee beans are not listed in the books, but you can buy a coffee pot. Similarly with raw tea leaves by the pound, or things like potatos, carrots, beets, mushrooms...foodstuffs I may wish to have 25+ pounds of since they're not prone to mold...that sort of thing? There are a huge number of items with variable or unlisted-in-base-form prices, and most people don't enjoy playing Packmules and Quartermasters like I do. I promise to be fair and use my best approximations on what the prices would look like.
Edit: Also, re: ABP and companions, I'd refer to this thread, with my personal opinion siding with the post I linked to directly.
EE: Genuinely did not notice that it was Mark Seifter who made the next post - it seems as though ABP was only designed to apply to PCs that progress partly by the wealth-by-level system - since it would cost a Druid twice as much in a normal game to outfit herself and her companion, it shouldn't be given to them for free under the ABP system.
You could devise a way to split it, if someone wanted to sacrifice one of their stat boosts to their animal - that amounts to much the same thing as buying them a belt instead of yourself, so it shouldn't change much.
E the Third: ABP usually works out just fine in low-loot systems. You get a Cloak of Resistence, a headband, a belt, the option of getting the two-stat belt or the +4 version, scaling weapon and armor enchants - there's one more Big Six I'm missing, but it's covered. And if you find that it isn't working with this dungeon, you could always drop the replacement loot to make up for it.
1) PFSRD estimates people with a 5 charisma as: "Has no awareness of the needs of others, almost no sense of empathy" - Read 'is a self-interested sociopath'. If you are prepared and able to play that character then I will consider it.
Oof - I hadn't actually read that line, I suppose. I'll adjust her mental stats to at least bump that up to a 7 - "sociopath" isn't really the mentality I was aiming for with her, but more like "disinterested ruffian" who wouldn't care to tell you you're being stupid or to shut up about your pretty haircut, sort of thing.
Nairb the Grey wrote:
2) At first glance I am not sure Mostly Human and Granite Skin really go together.
While I like Mostly Human for the mechanical advantages such as Enlarge, it was a holdover from the original idea I had, before I went off on a lore tangent - she was going to be from Po Li, and walked that distance rather than wandering around the pole and being reborn. I can drop it with no qualms.
Nairb the Grey wrote:
3) Believe it or not I am actually okay with the beginning wealth cheese. It is a whole lot of equipment to carry though. Definitely will be making good use of that 18 strength.
Are you okay with the 60gp Narrow Framed War Pony? That'll take a lot of the burden off of her back...literally. Let me worry about feeding it. :D
Thanks for the speedy response!
E: Took her stats to 18,15,14,10,10,8. Now she's not such a monster, and her lack of bonuses to Int/Wis does fit nicely with the background of being Shinji Ikari (aka confused and unsure of who they are).
I'm rolling in super late to the party here - I apologize for that. Before I present my sheet for inspection, however, I'd like attempt to justify a few things, and give the backstory of her first.
What I Did:
I saw "going into a dungeon with no way of getting out" and I fell in love, because I'm a Pathfinder hoarder - had I actually played back in 3.0 rather than pretending to on my own, I most certainly would have been one of the "take a ladder apart and sell the poles for more than its worth," even taking a rank or two in Craft: Carpentry of Prof: Woodworker just to make sure my poles were on the straight and narrow (queue comedy drums). We can cheese and cheese numbers to death to make the perfect mathematical sheet - but in doing so, we often lose sight of the vast number of nifty little inventions Paizo's devs have no problems in releasing. I love mundane equipment - from the frilly groomer who has a mule just for his portable bathtub and privacy curtains to the true Pathfinder Chronicler who spends more of the adventure measuring the walls and poetically recounting the combats than actually doing the fighting, they've made gear for them all.
So I opted for the Limburger method in choosing my traits - that is to say, overpotent cheese. I took Rich Parents and Chosen Child - this sets my base starting gold to 900, and then doubles it to 1,800.
Crikey, that's an advantage! And you're right, usually, but only for two or at most three levels. If I had dumped it all into a 1700 gp suit of armor, I'd take the flak, but here's what I'm doing instead.
1-Masterwork Spiked Agile Breastplate with Armored Kilt - 620 gp
2-Spiked Heavy Living Steel (very situational, but a money sink) Shield with Masterwork Illuminating Shield Boss (who's sundering my shield anyway? And - the character has Darkvision, so the illuminating property is only for others and thus unnecessary) - 215 gp
3-Dwarven Boulder Helmet (unproficient - just for the +2 vs crit confirm and the idea of wearing a helmet, since you can't just buy one) - 20 gp
4-Overkill weapons. Cold Iron doubles the cost, and Alchemical Silver adds a set amount - normal people only get one of each. Here is what I bought -
A: Cold Iron Spiked Gauntlet - 10 gp
B: Alchemical Silver Spiked Gauntlet - 15 gp
C: Cold Iron Pickaxe - 28 gp
D: Cold Iron Lucerne Hammer - 30 gp
E: Alchemical Silver Glaive-Guisarme - 192 gp
F: Greatsword - 50 gp
G: Cold Iron Earthbreaker - 80 gp
H: Cold Iron Warhammer - 24 gp
I: Cold Iron Heavy Pick - 16 gp
J: Alchemical Silver Gandasa - 105 gp
K: Alchemical Silver Machete - 30 gp
L: Cold Iron Light Pick - 8 gp
M: Cold Iron Light Hammer - 2 gp
Weapon Total Cost - 590 gp - this would be 201 without all the special materials.
Combat Equipment Total Cost - 1,445 gp!
This leave me with 355 gp, of which I've already spent 100 and have yet to really delve into the mundane. As you can see by the weapons, I've sank ample amounts of extra gold into redundancies and really, probably useless items. I certainly could have had more bang with 2 1st-level wands, or a backpack full of potions - but I opted instead to be "wasteful" in the hopes that my ridiculous money cheese would be accepted. And truth be told, if it comes down to "having a coffee pot" and "having an Alchemical Silver Glaive-Guisarme," the weapon will lose and I'll pack even more mundane gear onto myself.
Additionally, I'm sure I can't carry everything I want. I will buy a Warpony for gear - I'd do a mule but as seen here and mentioned before, I'd probably want to try something like that since mules are almost 5.5x cheaper than a Warpony...I won't, I promise, but if I had them on-hand, I'd find a way to make them useful somehow. I would like to pay an additional 15 gp (so 60 total) for a Warpony with the Narrow Frame feat replacing Run in the base animal. They're Medium anyway, unlike a horse, so unless we the PCs are going to squeeze, the pony wouldn't have to either...but it would fit the theme.
Character Story:
But first, let me paint a selfie. Since background is irrelevant (really) with this dungeon, I took some liberties here. I'm assuming Jade Regent, Iron Gods, and Reign of Winter have happened in the continuity of this world. This character is a rehashing of one I have used in those campaigns in meatspace. The short version is, we never finished RoW, so interrupted our Jade Regent in the middle to deal with the last two books of that, slowed our leveling, and then finished JR; I then made her "sister" for our groups IG campaign. I also wanted a way to justify her wealth beyond "someone gave it to her."
Additionally, I've been playing League of Legends since the first season some eight or nine years ago, and a lot of their lore ret-cons have bothered me by taking what I felt were really cool stories and then making the dummy version of it. So, I present to you -
Malphite, Shard of the Monolith
Ten thousand years ago, ancient and evil Aboleth mages brought forth destruction on their rebellious subjects by summoning a magical meteorite to fall upon Golarion and destroy their insolence. Many scholars of today claim that they simply grabbed space debris and pulled it to the surface, with the magic of Aroden transforming the rock into the Starstone, and not the other way around. This was not so.
The Monolith has stood firm amid the Maelstrom since time immemorial - a living demiplane composed entirely of rock. No simple elemential roil spawning parts of itself and resembling a living thing, The Monolith existed with singular consciousness and purpose - though to what end it exists has been its contemplation for eons. When the Aboleths performed their vile ritual, they did not grab a passing comet or floating asteroid from the Diaspora - they summoned a fragment of The Monolith itself. The demiplane barely took note of so small a component going missing, but the Shard found itself aware and conscious in a world not meant for one such as it.
For nearly five thousand years, the Shard sat at the bottom of the ocean, writhing in despair from being separated from its whole and knowing nothing but cold and darkness as its existence. It was not until the archmage Aroden, Last Son of the Azlanti rose the rock from the sea did Malphite become aware of individuality. This spark of consciousness was so great that it bestowed upon the powerful mage true Divinity, and thus the God of Humanity was born, not of its own trials but through the gestalt existence of The Monolith and its shard, whom named itself Malphite - from an ancient Azlanti word pulled from Aroden's mind. Bound intrinsically to the new deity, Malphite sat dormant in the form of the Starstone, unwittingly imparting fragments of itself into those who managed to complete Aroden's trials and touch it. It spend millenia in quiet contemplation, broken only by these rare visits, until Aroden perished in 4606. No longer bound to the dead god's existence, Malphite felt a taste of true freedom and individuality for the first time, and it took over 1000 years before it was able to act upon it.
Malphite first manifested itself physically in 4686 AR - inserting its alien spark into a child of Janderhoff, Malphite was born as an Oread girl to surface Dwarves who traded with the Shoanti. From there, she was swept into the struggles for Numeria, drawn inexorably to the materials of the great space ship crashed within its depths. As those events unfolded, the divine spark within became manifest, and a strange woman, half-machine and half-mortal named Casandalee, touched upon this spark as she awoke as an Iron God.
Upon imparting this divinity, Malphite's avatar crumbled into the earth and rocks - and was born again as an Oread to Tromard Roldheim, the Dwarf in charge of Riddleport's Gas Forges. She remembered her past events with Casandalee, but as she aged, and it became clear that those events had not occurred, she largely forgot, and relegated the memories to childish fancies of adventure and excitement.
She found plenty of that herself, as she left Riddleport for the quiet town of Sandpoint in her middling years. It was there she met Ameiko Kaijitsu, and discovered her true nature and role in the world. She lost the party in the Crown of the World, and wandered for years amid the ice and snow. Eventually, the scenery changed, and she found herself in a strange new world where men spoke new languages and wielded sticks of fire, poisonous gasses, and an alarming number of firearms both large and small - the likes of which tugged briefly on her memories of another life, and allowed her to realize she was no longer on the Golarion of her home. She wandered as well through these frozen wastes, avoiding the humans who shot at her and shunned her strange appearance, before she was plucked by Baba Yaga herself, tossed into her hut, and deposited back in the Land of the Linnorm Kings.
She moved through the lands in a daze, the memories of her recent experiences clouding and turning to nonsense - Malphite lost all sense of her self during this time, even forgetting the hatred she initially held for the Queen of Witches for presumably doing this to her. She now knew only that she wished to survive, and piece together what had happened to her life thus far. She wandered down to Riddleport, feeling a strange calling for the Varisian coast, where she has since encountered fliers and talks of a strange new danger lurking to the north. With no other purpose in life but to live, Malphite has turned her attentions to this new challenge, hoping that pushing herself might, if not bring back her memories, at least allow her to forget that something with her is wrong. She sold the various bits of spoils she had acquired during her travels, and outfitted herself with all the tools she could muster, before treking out to find her latest challenge.
E: Whoops, I should at least throw -some- stats at you!
Barebones Stats:
Female Oread - Alt. Racials: Granite Skin, Mostly Human, Stone in the Blood, Treacherous Earth.
Abilities: 18,15,14,12,12,5 - I may adjust these slightly, but it'll be the mental stats that get wiggled in order to boost Con.
Class: Unbreakable Fighter. Alternate FCB into the Oread alternate of +1 to CMD vs Bull Rush and Drag. Feats (in no real order) - Stony Step, Nimble Moves, Power Attack, Combat Reflexes, Stand Still, Step Up, Following Step, Step Up and Strike, Dodge, Mobility, Combat Patrol, Two-Weapon Fighting, and various shield feats. Her objective is to be the wall which blocks the baddies from getting to her allies.
That's pretty much it for a Fighter advancement, and I do not forsee any class dips or other wonky things beyond what's above.
EE: And as a last edit point before I run out of time - I like her armor as-is, and wouldn't want to advance to a full set of Heavy; Endurance lets her sleep in Medium armor, so she'll simply take off her skirt and lose 1 AC while still being able to rest without fatigue - something that's probably too relevant in a place like this. As such, worries about how to get a "fitted Full Plate" in the dungeon-of-all-monsters are moot.
And now I learn of the edit time limit about 5 minutes too late.
Unnamed Character Concept:
Race - Human (Varisian), Alt. Racial: Heart of the Fey
Class - Swarm Monger Druid 1/Legate Gray Paladin of Abadar X
Alignment - LN
Stats - 14, 10, 15, 10, 14, 15
Traits - Reactionary, Beast Bond, Friends and Enemies(C), Misbegotten(D)
Progression - The Druid level is my dip - the remainder shall go into Paladin. Will take a bond other than Mount.
Planned Feats - 1) Nature Bond, Fey Foundling; 3) Boon Companion - Familiar; 5) Animal Ally; 7) Boon Companion - Animal Companion
History - I will need to flesh this out with exact details. The character was found roaming the wilderness at a young age, born from parents unknown with a similarly surprising ability to have survived alone. Feral for several years, her adopted parents worked hard to integrate her into society. While successful, she still felt more at ease among animals than humanoids, but took to enforcing civility on them rather than reverting to her wild ways. She now resides just outside of the North gate, where she breeds and trains serviceable animals for general use by the citizens of Sandpoint - from donkeys and mules for pack animals to cats and birds used for pest control. "A goat in every pen" is the motto of her makeshift ranch, and indeed her trained and well-behaved livestock are growing in popularity. Recently, she has felt stirrings of some unknown power within her, and two nannies have given birth to kids bearing a key-shaped marking on their hindquarters. She is constantly accompanied by a raven perched on her shoulder, and she walks with a staff, keeping her weight off her left leg, which has been misshapen and mangled since she was discovered - though this does not impede her normal movement, she finds complex full-body actions such as swimming or acrobatics difficult.
Roles - With a Sorcerer and a Druid, many of the out of combat roles she would otherwise bring are likely covered. Her raven can serve as an effective scout, as could her future animal companion (which will likely be a giant raven). Depending on the skills of the rest of the party, she could serve as a moderately decent face, but it's likely that the wisdom of the Druid and the charisma of the Sorcerer will both be higher than hers. In combat, beyond level 1, she will function as the self-healing tankadin, drawing enemies in with her apparent lack of armor and crippled state. The raven will be able to deliver touch heals at 3, drawn from both the Druid and Paladin slots, as well as disrupting casters and causing minor inconveniences in Swarm form. The companion will add an extra set of dps to the group, which may make up for my lack of Power Attack until and if I take it in the future.
Times - I am EST, and work varying hours, in addition to having full custody of a 5 year old - as such the best I can estimate posting times would be "morning" and then "later evening."
I should be able to have a full sheet up by this evening.
@Mystic Ankh You forgot an important piece while quoting me
Not so, I brought it up several times - I've just been posting from mobile and it isn't the easiest to insert quote boxes. My hesitations have largely been assuaged, it was just worrisome to see such a vast number of threads with similar requirements - though it does make a bit more sense as I sat and put it into perspective of 6-7 years for an AP vs a few months (or just one, if you're dedicated and linear...and in person).
And to show I'm not simply complaining, I'll edit this post with a character application shortly - I've already discovered the timeout errors, so I want to make sure I have a hearty connection first! And to save long posts somewhere else in the future...
I think part of what you are missing, Mystic Ankh, is that those shorter PFS/SFS games provide an opportunity for you to try PBP gaming on this forum at the minimum risk to not only your time investment, but also to the time investment of the other people at the table. An Adventure Path advertisement is asking for people to commit to playing for well over a year. Maybe 6 or 7. The campaign scenarios can be completed in a couple fo months over PBP
That I had not considered, you are correct - I had read that as an advertisement for PFS; the conclusion to my story earlier was my local GM was stripped of two stars and had to basically be supervised from here on. The convention would have taken me to 12, but because he had been making decisions not in-line with Society guidelines, my character was effectively barred from official play - meaning I'll never get to play a retirement scenario and essentially wasted two RL years. Trying to get there again on this medium, as you implied, might just take a decade - and while this might be a safe place to do so, being the official forums, the anonymity of the internet means I couldn't even yell at the GM for ruining a large investment of my time (and money - can't use the SRDs in PFS play after all).
I have no qualms with this format in-and-of itself - I have been in a dedicated WoW free-form RP on a forum for almost eight years now. It is simply the preference for experience and seemingly clique-esque nature of 9/10 recruitment posts (for Pathfinder - there are a surprising number of non-PF recruitments on here) which, as I mentioned, I spent several hours looking through that was dissuading me - my options appear to be apply anyway with the assumption that I'm probably not getting selected, or phone in two years of evergreen scenarios just to "pad my resume," as it were.
I will certainly try for a time, and lurk for "newbie-friendly" threads like many of Dak's, but I also have no interest in doing the latter - that's honestly meaningless, as I would not care at all about those characters and indeed would only run them until 2 at most before popping out another meaningless reference.
Good luck to you, though! Both here and in your other games.
Mystic Ankh - Don't confuse the question of "what's your experience with PBP?" with a statement that experience is required.
That question and the answer helps a GM know what to expect, what kind of guidance a player might need. It doesn't inherently mean they only want players with a solid track record.
And the old players can trawl through this site for weeks trying to get into a long-term game that appeals to them. There are a great many PFS and SFS campaign modules offered on the site on a first-come-first-served basis, and near continuous offerings of scenarios designed for players new to the PFS campaign.
Edit: Check the threads "stickied" to the top of the recruitment forum.
"I will say, I am going to prioritize players that have a demonstrated posting history over people new to play by post."
While I also read the following sentences and checked the veracity on Dak's profile, this shows up in the majority of the recruitment threads I've spent the past 4 hours scrolling through to make sure this was something I am interested in doing - and having had terrible experiences with PFS in real life, I have no interest in dealing with someone I can not confront by face (I made it to 9.2 locally, but some table variance led to the character being unable to play at a convention, completely turning me off the system forever; playing with her was the entire reason I attended.).
But when I see the accepted players from other recruitments being in a dozen active games and 30 inactive, and GMs choosing players they are playing with in other games who presented barebones concepts over players with detailed and fleshed character presentations, I can't help but wonder if this entire thing will turn into a waste of time for the aforementioned reasons.
Apologies for hijacking your thread, but this was something I was interested in, and it fits the mould of the rest of the threads I looked through.
Where would new members like myself go to find a play-by-post? Several search results pointed to the Paizo site here, but nearly all of these threads state something along the lines of "experience required." It's like the internet memes of finding a job out of college - entry level positions require experience, but you can't get the experience because you won't be hired without the experience. I have to say, with so many table top gamers moving to the "simplified" editions, a community such as this being closed off to newcomers is wholly disappointing.
Edit: I'll be putting in an application anyway, despite the lacking the required experience - it just doesn't seem right that I should have to trawl through here for potentially months before someone opens a campaign to new-to-the-site players.
