PoorWanderingOne's page

Right, thanks for the invite.
The character looks excellent.

Now I just need to get my head round the cockney.
Apologies in advance, I will murder the accent and it will die messy.

Looks amazing Joana. My plate is too too full or I would happily send you an app. Best of luck and who knows, if you should need a replacement player....

Greetings, I would like to join this pbp.
I am looking at a human hungry ghost or ki mystic monk with the Making Good on Promises trait.

The professor brought me to the monastery where I grew up as a babe. My parents were Ustalav however. Why they were so far from home and their fate is unknown to me.

As I grew I was in awe of the professor. He spoke to the masters as an equal and singled me out for friendship. He never mentioned it but I knew that he had saved my life and I knew that I would repay him somday.

Months ago the mystics at the monestary began having dream visions of Ustalav and the professor, and me. The masters gave me some gold and sent me to find the truth. The journey out of the mountains, the caravan, the sea voyage all these passed smoothly. So smoothly that I was considered a bit of a good luck charm by the river people who brought me on the last leg to the city.

I met the messenger charged with bringing me the news of the professor's death less than 5 minutes after entering then city.

I am heartbroken. I am far away from home and the only link to my past is broken.

(note: Monk is just an idea. I am interested in a physical class though. Fighter, Warrior of holy light, something like that. Been playing spellcasters for a bit and want to try something new.
~will)

Me: Literate, verbose, easily able to manage several posts per day. GMT +8 (Seattle) if it matters. Good grasp of core and APG Pathfinder and a wizard at Savage Worlds. I look to DM Alexander Kilcoyne's Serpents Skull as my gold standard for pbp. I usually play Good aligned types. I am a very active plot mover with a strong interest in setting and atmosphere.

You: Good balance between role play and hacking. Running an AP or something like it. Sometheing that has the option if running for a while if it takes off.

If you think you could make use of me please let me know.

Thanks
~will

Hello, If this is still open I would like to pitch my steel reinforced bowler in to the ring.

I have been wanting to try a fighter who specializes in helping others. I see the character as shield oriented and using swift aid and other body-guard type feats to help flankers bring on the pain. The character will also be able to fight solo but will shine when supporting others.

Note this may not work, but it would be fun to try. Ultimately the character may moveinto Stalwart Defender depending on for things go.

I am a noob when it comes to play-by-post. If I am selected it will be my first online game of this time. I am quite familiar with the rules however so that should be ok. I will have no problem keeping up with the posting schedule. In fact you might have problems shutting me up. :7)

Please let me know and I'll start working on figuring out how to make an online character.

Hoping to see the sights in the big city.
~will

I second the commoner/aristocrat idea.

I mean elven wizards are bad enough but imagine how much snootier you could be as an elven aristo/wizard. Take the rich parents trais and hire a entourage.

Or better yet grab the issue of nodwick with the henchman class. It's 3.5 and only really exists for 10 levels but it would be a blast to play.

Hmmm do even you have the stats for a gun wielding Paladin?

I am also liking the alchemist/barbarian idea. Take the drunken brute version from the apg. Just drop the mutagen in the applejack and stand well back.

10/10 Drunken brute/Alchemist. Not bad at all.

~will

The feat allows you to aid another in crafting. So it the crafter has the feat it really doesn't matter unless he is seeking to aid the goon, who presumably doesn't have a very high craft skill. So in your scenario with a crafter and a goon both with the feat, y is still y/2.

Also keep in mind that the feat requires an item creation feat, meaning that all of your apprentices needed to take Scribe Scroll whether they needed it or not.

oops.

Well it still works for alchemy. 7 goons with 1 rank in alchemy and this feat aiding an alchemist would churn out goodies faster than santa.

~will

Any idea what the other players are going for?

Absent any more data I would recommend playing something you have never played before. The nice stats will help support you while you learn how the new class/race works.
Try a twf fighter specializing in improved unarmed strike.
or
A sling focused hafling inquisitor.
or
A gracefull elven gunslinger.
or
A half orc magus using spell and bite.
or
A gnome drunken monk.
or
A dwarf ninja
or
An abberent bloodline sorcerer. You have the stats to get good use out of the the special abilities.

Basically try something new.

for what it is worth
~will

Wow.......

I don't see anything that would disallow this.

It looks good as RAW. This is a very powerful spell.

~will

Well I learned something new. I did not know that circumstance bonuses stack. However I still objection to this feat. It really seems like it enables you to do something you should be able to do anyway. The assist rules allow you to give a +2 bonus to aid another if you hit DC 10, and doubling the amount of value produced seems like something the DM should allow anyway. It's just common sense that if one person is building a house alone, the same work could be done more than twice as fast with a competent helper.

Really, all the feat seems to allow is spellcasters to share requirements to forge a Wonderous Item, and that seems like a fairly limited ability.

Am I missing something or will the normal assist bonuses stack with this feat?

so crafting "x"
1 crafter = time y
1 crafter and henchgoon = time y at +2skill
1 crafter w/feat and goon = time y/2 at +4 skill
1 crafter w/feat and goon w/feat = time y/4 at +6 skill
1 crafter w/feat and 6 apprentices w/feat = time y/64 at +16 skill

Wait... I must be missing something.....
~will

My wizard got around this very question by making a once per day magic item that casts ME and using it just before I study spells for the day.

Pretty nifty item and not too expensive, mind you the gm gave me a discount because the item cannot use the recall function of ME. It does mean that I'm walking around with a spell effect up, but I can live with that. I love having 3 extra first level spells handy.

As far as the OP question we are going whith a. Though I am effectively treating it as if option b were the case.

for what it's worth
~will

Create pit + Summon swarm.

Look at me. I'm a wizard.
Look at you. You are in a pit.
Now look at me. Now back to you,
the pit is full of spiders.

Mage Evolving wrote:

1. find a Human.

2. Name him Thaco.
3. Max out strength to 18.
4. Put remainder in Con.
5. Drop charisma to raise dex slightly.
6. Throw on the heaviest armor you can find.
7. Grab a battle axe and shield start swinging.

feats:
power attack
cleave
weapon focus
weapon specialization
furious focus
toughness
shield focus

See, this man has the right idea! Although... oh, I see you have Furious Focus in there. Gee, I dunno - that just sounds wrong. I mean, "focus" is certainly clinical and lacking in flavor, but "furious"? Whoa there, big fellah! Let's not get carried away here! That implies some emotional motivation behind the die rolling, and motivation leads to backstory, and backstory is, of course, FAR too interesting.

1-7 perfect

I suggest chain over plate armor, plate is usualy decorated.
for feats:
Toughness
Endurance
Iron will
Athletic
Quickdraw
Self-Sufficient
Blind-fighting

I think this build avoids the maximum of choices. Athletic and Self-S minimize reliance on other party members, mitigating the need to talk to them. Endurance means you never need to remove your armor. Other feats were largely chosed to make it easier for Sir Blando to just attack and attack.

Mind you a fighter with all the defensive feats, save bonuses, CMD help, etc might not be that bad to play. Would not always hit hard but you stick to the baddies like a social disease. You annoy them to death.

Alternately one could drop wisdom to the campaign minimum, do not take Iron Will get Charmed in the first encounter and not even have to roll the attacks.

~will

I am assuming a general spoiler tag on this thread so you have been warned.

I traced the outline of the island, making the odd mistake here and there, remember the last time anyone cared about this place was what 200years ago?

I made some notes on the map that a ships navigator would find useful. I noted the location of the old colony, adding a note that there was no safe approach with out a pilot. I also noted red mountain and the great tree as these are longstanding landmarks that are clearly visible from ships. I threw distance and angle markings that a navigator could use to get back on course to somewhere civilized. Then I soaked the whole thing in 2 day old coffe and walked on it a bit once it was dry. It looks worn like it came out of a wrecked ship.

It is also rather fragile and the players will not get a replacement if it tears. If they want to make a copy I have nice clean strong outlines available to represent their chatacters successful craft:revelent skill but the notes and such they can add.

This all assumes of course that someone has paper to write on. Ink and pens wouuld be handy as well.

~will

Arcane sight pinpoints the "location" in 1 round with out concentration unless I am forgetting something. Not sure if this adds to much to the conversation but It's good to note.

~will

Whatever the wizards spellbook and arcane bond aren't the same as the gunslingers guns.

The problem is a 1st gunslinger can take the two pistol option and then sell one of the pistols thus increasing his wealth by level. A wizard doesn't have that option.

Actually this sounds like a good idea. Sell 1 pistol buy some ammo and a close in weapon. By the time you have the feats/levels to dual wield or iterate guns efectively you will have the cash to buy back the pistol.

So it this a good tactic for a lvl 1 gunslinger?

DM intervention and a sense of fair play and decency come readily to mind.

Forgive the noob question, but why is a one level dip into Gunslinger cheese?

The last campaign I played in started at 2nd level and I came to the table with a 1/1 rogue/wizard. Was this cheese?
Is changing your mind and changing to oracle or whatever after first level cheese? The Wizard starts with a free spellbook with a decent selection of spells in it. If a 1st level wizard wants to give up magic and become a cleric can they not sell their book?

Part of the class is the free gear or am I missing something?

~will

Yes that's what i am going to do.

Cool. An elf wizard with a sword should rock. Heck with the right spells and properties that sword could even deliver the odd nasty suprise.

Have fun
~will

Whatever you choose make sure to max Diplomacy, Perception, and Sense Motive. These skills let you spot a mark, run the con, and get out when the getting is good.

If you are open to book recomendations allow me to point you twords "Lies of Locke Lamora" by Scott Lynch. Good feel for the life of a fantasy conman.

Link:(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lies_of_Locke_Lamora)

~will

As far as a bonded weapon might I suggest that that weapon be a staff? It has precedent"...knob on the end..." It is working well for my Wizard in "Council of Thieves."

Just one note on schools. If you are in an urban invironment you will need 'Disguise self' or 'Alter self' at some point. The first spell was so useful in our game that the first non-scroll magic item I made was a Hat of Disgiuse. It saved my bacon a number of times. Sure the DC was feeble but the baddies had to have a reason to question it to get a save. I wear the thing so much that I am forgetting what my character really looks like. I even used it to appear as a Hellknight to clear a crowd that was slowing me down as I ran from Hellknights.

So yes illusion school is a keeper. My forbiddens are necro and enchantment as I have a personal distaste for save or die spells.

I second your desire for a bonded item over a familiar. The wee besties are by far the better choice powerwise but they eat up gm face time. I started with a familiar and graduated to a consular Imp so I have experience as a wee bestie wrangler. As time went on I sttarted to feel guilty about the time it was taking to deal with the Imp's actions in addition to mu own. It was much worse when we were operating apart. From the gm face time perspective I was running 2 characters. Not good. So I talked the GM into letting me swap to bonded object. Things went MUCH more smoothly. Yes I lost a chunk o' power, but play for everyone was improved and as the man said "The play's the thing...."

~will

I also run with a house rule on heat, I don't like the fact that it goes from 0 penalty to a +4 penalty for wearing armor. So instead, I make the penalty equal to their armor check penalty. Which is why most of the native people wear light or no armor.

That is a really well thought out house rule. Consider it swiped.

~will

If a player takes this background with the back-story that they grew up in the expanse should they still be susceptible to the heat? It makes sense that they would be acclimated but that might encourage party splitting where they go off alone while the rest of the party waits out the midday sun.

Has anyone else run into this issue? How did you deal with it?

Thanks in advance
~will

Has anyone done anything with this trait?
I am getting ready to run this and If someone takes this trait I want to have a couple ideas ready. I am frankly stumped so I am turning to you.

What have you done with this trait?

What cargo do you think the trait holder is protecting?

How might this trait fit remaign important throughout the campaign?

In games where a player has taken this trait how have the other players reacted to one of their number dragging a large box marked "do not open" around behind them?

These kind of cargo supervisors usually travelled with large, valuable, cargos. Wine merchants used them as their cargos required special handeling for example. Is this the sort of thing this trait represents?
If so how does this cargo survive the island?

Any help would be welcome.
Thanks in advance
~will

@ Alexander Kilcoyne
That is an excellent map. Thank you for putting it up.
By the way I am lurking on youre Serpents skull thread. It looks like a great game.

It looks like I will just have to knuckle down and create my own map. This is a gaao AP but one cannot expect pazio to do everything.

Now I just need to figure out what would be on that map. Assuming it, or the map it was based on, dates from the failed settlement then the giant tree and the fungus would not be marked.

Note: the following musings are notes to myself about what to put on my map-that-is-yet-to-be and should be considered as unreliable as the currents near the Shiv.

The mountain, the lighthouse, the settelment to be and navigation aids for the safe ship or boat passage to the settlement would be on the map. Such a passage needs to exist or the settlement and lighthouse would never have been built.

The primary purpose for this map would be to allow ship captains to identify the island for navagation purposes and to know not to come near the place.

So we have a map with extremely out of date soundings and notes about what can be seen of the island from a telescope.

Judging from the equipment list ship captains do not have access to shipbord clocks and are using square sails. Gods these imaginary people are brave. So there will be prevailing wind notations and perhaps some notes about how far from the island the reefs run.

Right. Where's my good pencil!
~will

Rats.

In a perfect world the map the players find would not show the game trails.

Looks like time to break out the pen and ink and make a more nautical looking map.

A sailors map of the Shiv would not show:
game trails.
rivers other than their mouths.
Anything of the serpent shaped cove on the SE other than the opening.

Would show:
Islets and shoreline
beaching areas

Openings to bays or rivers but only as much of the bays as are easily reachable by jolly boat.

Hills and mountains

Giant trees

Fungus island.

The lighthouse ruin.

So do you think I've missed anything?
My goal is to have this be something the players add to through play.

~Will

ps. sorry for this being so disjointed. Posting while under the weather.
~will

Mind you it makes you glow like a rich man's christmas to Arcane sight.

So maybe you don't want the com spell when you are sneaking into the wizard's tower.

~will

Savarend rises over the crest and barrels toward the savages. "Remember Tunnel 17!"

Move as far as possible.

Lurker who nearly spat his tea.

Knew there was a reason I was reading this.

Good job all.
~Will

Hey, One of my Characters in a campaign I'm running wants to use chains as weapons, which is fine, there are rules for that, but he wants then attached to Manacles around his wrist, they are broken in the middle and are about 4 feet long. I think its a cool idea and I want to let him do it, but what Kind of penalties would that incur? He has all the proficiencies need for the chains btw.

A chain with a locking gauntlet? A bit extra weight in exchange for making it REALLY hard to disarm you.

Actually I would just eyeball it. Just add the cost/price/weight of a set of manacles to the cost/price/weight of the chain weapons. I would round down/cut them some slack if it looks like the chain weapons are getting too non-optimal, the player deserves credit for a cool concept.

~will

I could be wrong but the quoted text does not state that the Iron Monk needs to spend either ki or actions to get the +2 Shield bonus.

To me this seems like a nifty ability. If the Iron Monk starts next to a baddie and wants to do a FOB they get some extra defence. I also do not see anthing that says the ki powered dodge and the ki powered iron arm cannot stack. +6 ac (base iron arm plus ki dodge) or +8ac (ki powered both) is nothing to sneeze at.

Question. Do shield bonuses vanish if you lose dex ac bonus? Flat footed/blind/invisable attacker/entangeled et multiple cetera?

No rules handy so I expect I am wrong
~will

Another voice for the rogue idea.

Air elementist/rogue is a very good combo. Very fun to play but remember the wand of protection from arrows. You will spend a great deal of time in the air.
also
Alchemist/rouge for some nice poison and buffs. The mutagens and bombs are just gravy here.

or

Witch. Let the sorcerer deal with the minions you will focus on removing the big bad.

Random ideas
~will

... it appears your Craft (baskets) skill applies just as well to making your sword flaming as anything else.

Well the sword has a basket hilt so that's good. :)

Excuse my poor wording.

An ability that lasts 1 minute will last you for an entire combat, if not multiple combats.

Even a halfheartedly built paladin will have a charisma score of at least +2. That means that by 4th level with no other investment a WoHL will have 5 uses of his LoH pool a day. I think as a DM I would be hard pressed to put a party into more than 4 individual encounters a day against their will to rest at this level. That is not to mention the ability to get Extra LoH as a feat, which is in itself a worthwhile thing to get even for non WoHL.

What I am saying is, the sky is not falling guys.

I don't think the sky is falling. I am just trying to see what the WotHL gets that makes up for the loss of spells and spell items. I am trying to see what is awesome about the class.

Brfore the errata I saw the awesome in the Warrior. They never stopped.
Run a Paladin out of spells,smites,hands and you've crippled them.
Run a cleric out of channels and spells and you've crippled them.
Run a pre-erreata WotHL out of hands and you barely slow her down.

The base Paladin has much much more short term power and in exchange the WotHL gets near Fighter levels of staying power. In my view this was awesome and pretty balanced. In play the base Paladin would be more powerful than the pre-errata WotHL because folks will rest when spells run low so the Paladin will be close to topped up most of the time.

Anyway this is getting long and I have election news to follow. Suffice it to say I see the Warrior of the Flickering Light as a crippled paladin rather that a varient paladin. If I was an evil mastermind I know which version of Paladin I would want to see knocking on my Dungeon door.

~will
If you are in the US, remember to vote.

Before I read the FAQ I thought this class was awesome.

You give up spellcasting and the ability to use spell based magic items in return for the ability to glow like a glam rocker. Effectively an at will bless that gets better as you level. You also get a couple more lay-on-hands per day.

Seemed cool. Loose access to some very nice spells, get constant low powered combat aid. Maybe better than the base class maybe worse but not far in either direction.

Then I read the faq.
Ugg.

So given that turning the lights on now burns a lay-on-hands is the class still the rough equilivent of a base paladin?

I say no but I may be missing something.

Thoughts?
~will
(formerly glowing)

Granted hitting all the time is a bit much to expect and granted they will save most of the time.

But an amulet that makes all your attacks carry a dc 13 poison (as the spell) would effectively give you a new way to crit.

Sometimes you roll high and crit and sometimes they blow the save and start taking con damage. Might be woth it.

~will

I can think of one more, forehead, who doesn't love a poison headbutt.

Vyvyan from the young ones springs to mind.

You know there may be something in this. Perhaps an amulet or something that makes all attacks poisoned.

Might be worth it even with a low dc. You got to get lucky sometime.

~will

Without something like the Alchemist discovery Sticky Poison, you'd have to reapply the poison between strikes.

Between strikes or between flurries? I'm thinking of something like a toxic paste applied to hands/feet/elbows/knees/forehead/spleen et.al

Mind you application would take at least a full minute. It's an idea for a group of LE monks to use to make their first full attacks more effective.

then there is the whole question of contact poision coated armor vs. grapplers.

sigh, violence is complicated.
~will

Is there anything stopping a monk immune to poison from using injury toxin on their fists?

Would a contact poison be a better choice?

Thinking of poison and it's not even thanksgiving.
~will

if an invisible elf standing next to a giant can cast a personal buff spell without drawing an aoo then tossing your cape ofer an attackers head should allow yor buddy to slip past the attacker with out drawing an aoo.

I don't know if this is RAW but it is in line with the rule of cool.
~will

I can see the argument that a whip cannot carry an injury poison as the whip does only non-lethal but what about contact poisons?

Could it deliver the contact poison to creatures with better than +3 natural armor?

thinking of whips and it's not even valentines day.
~will

Why fight him?
With a will save that low spam some charm persons and make him do your laundry.

Or a scroll of phantasmal killer or dominate person or hold person or...

wait a min... a wand of quickened daze could be fun.

Lots to do with a low will enemy.

Though mind you. It might be better to let him kill you if that's what it takes to get the GM to do an audit. I suspect there is some chicanery going on. If nothing else the audit will reveal how foolishly over party wealth the drow is.

~will

Hmmm I saw Inquisitors as the Jedi of Pathfinder.

1. teamwork feats that reward the mentor student relationship.
2. spells/judgements to do odd 'force' things.
3. dedicated to an ideal but still able to be rat-%*#)ards on occasion.
4. For a lightsaber call it a exotic-weapon hand and a half sword.
5. Lighting effects provided by the variable bane effect.

Seems solid.

'course these are not Jedi. Jedi in the films do things that are not duplicatable by anything other than the power of plot. But I think this is as close as you can reliably get. More of a feel conversion than a rule conversion I suppose.

Thioughts?
~will

Ross Byers wrote:

My understanding is it refers to the standard rules for catching on fire.

so it just burns forever then lol

Well forever until they do something about it.

Frankly a ref save at +2 is not that hard to make. If you have a friend to 'aid another' on you for another +2 this looks even better.

Fire bombs are good but they are not eternal.
~will

Kevin Andrew Murphey, Thank you for taking the time to answer my post and suggesting the difference between natural magic, ceremonial magic and celestial magic.

From my perspective it doesn’t make any sense in terms of fluff that an alchemist can copy from a wizards spell book but a wizard cant copy from an alchemist’s spell book, erm formulae book. See the problem? After all, the materiel components for a fire ball spell are a ball of bat guano and sulphur. From my perspective it is a game balance issue. There is a trade off…The classes which have to prepare their spells before hand, have a much wider selection of spells, and have the capacity to add spells to their repetoire as they come across them. To balance this the spontaneous casters have a limited number of spells known.

Well I think I will house rule that wizards can copy spells from an alchemist’s formulae book, with the caviat, that a wizard can only copy spells out of an alchemist’s formulae book, to his spell book ( which are formulae as well) that are on his spell list.

I would further expand this to include the witch as well. IF the alchemist, witch, and wizard can swap magical spells, provided those spells are on their spell lists, I don’t see that there is a balance issue. It allows a player, who is an alchemist for example to ask a wizard, if he can copy some spells, and be able to offer something in return. The same goes for a witch. The simple solution for this is a house rule, which I shall implement.

Thank you for taking the time to answer.

I agree with you about the wizard and the alchemist but how do you get the spell out of the goat?

This could really use a ruling as there are now 2 classes (wizard and Witch) who run into this problem.

Please pardon the necromancy
~will

So what is the thought regarding a person under dimensional lock before they enter the space of a created pit/have a pit created under them?
Do they fall?
Or is this a viable tactic for a caster with a ring of dimension lock? You wait for the baddies to close then defensive cast Acid Pit under your feet and watch them fall.

~will

Will a spider swarm take damage from a Create Pit spell? Or a Spiked Pit? I think Acid or Hungry pit should do damage but given their immunity to weapon damage I am not so sure...

The first rule of pits: don't open a portable hole.
~will

Create pit + cloudkill = great fun!

I prefer Create pit and summon swarm. Nice and low level. If you use a bat swarm then there you are looking at 1d6 plus 1 bleed per turn. Sure the dc 11 save vs distraction won't do much but it might hamper the odd caster.

mind you for minion control summon spiders into the pit and those 2 dc 11 checks per turn might just do something.

random thoughts
~will

From Dominate person:
Once control is established, the range at which it can be exercised is unlimited, as long as you and the subject are on the same plane.

Create Pit and Rope Trick create extra-dimensional spaces. If you throw a dominated party in a creadted pit or stuff them in a Rope Trick are they free from control?

~will

PoorWanderingOne wrote:

Would dimensional anchor or lock allow one to walk across a pit created via one of the APG pit spells?

Personally, I would say no as you are not actually leaving this dimension. All the pit spell is doing, essentially, is folding space. Creating space where there previously was none.

That was my initial interpration of the spell as well but then I noticed this in the description:

So the spell does create an extra dimensional space.

odd
~will