There is also a Magus Archetype that works off of Charisma and gets a few pseudo-Bloodrager abilities. Dipping Swashbuckler with it would be great.
"Introducing the Maquis de Carabas" - form and maintain an outlandish second identity.
"Strange women lying in ponds" - Ascend to the throne of a kingdom.
Please keep that imgur gallery updated and edited, I really want to use these in my home game
You could also try running it as a Gestalt game with an emphasis on both characters filling multiple roles.
So, you're new to PBP? Let me give you a few pointers. Doomed Hero's great formatting guide is here: Link You may want to open with some further info about the setting, what kind of characters you are looking for, acceptable materials, etc. Here are some threads that have strong opening posts:
Dogs are always a good idea.
I think that groaning might be me at seeing yet another thread like this. I like the new material that has come out over time, one of my favorite characters was an alchemist, etc, etc. Sure system mastery is rewarded but I don't think splatbook bloat is much of a problem with websites like the PFSRD and the Archives of Nethys out there. Are people going to exploit certain facets of the system? Yes, that's inevitable but it is more a problem inherent in the players than the system.
Flynt holsters his weapon and gauges the distance between him and Elise, pacing back and forth for a moment. He knew the little wingy freaks were up to something but just what was beyond his immediate ken. He breathed the heady jungle air in and out focusing on that distant coin until the features stood out to him in stark relief. The buzzing of nearby insects slowed perceptibly to his ears and the movements of those around his became graceful caricatures of reality. He drew, the speed at which the gun came to level was painfully slow to his eye but the iron sights soon leveled and he began to squeeze the trigger. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of the hovering rock even as Al moved to intercept magic with magic. He whipped around, dancing in a semi-circle out of the way regardless and moving from his previously clear firing lane to one that shot through thick underbrush and leaves, half-obscuring Elise and the coin. It might have made the shot almost impossible for anyone else, but not for Flynt. The coin was fixed in his mind like a beacon. He was counting on that brush to save his bullet from direct influence. Duster still fanning out around him as he watched Elise react to the softening stone, Flynt felt the stone in his chest throb almost like the beat of his absent heart. He finished squeezing the trigger and the report was indeed like thunder in the noisy jungle.
Pausing at the insistence of their scouts, Hiram takes the opportunity to pull out a pipe and pack it with tobacco. This late in the game he had learned to let the specialists handle what they were specialized in and not sweat things he could not change. "So how's the North, your Highness? Still cold and full of large people being violent to each other?"
*Slow clap advancing to standing ovation for James Jacobs coming in and getting a handle on this situation*
Just gotta kill me in one round or things will get messy.
The save against a called shot's effects are based on the AC hit by the called shot. It's part of the reason I love them so much.
My two submissions: Ony Zimyatov, Dog of the Watch:
Human Unbreakable Fighter/Swashbuckler Rogue
Neutral Good Favored Class: Fighter Employment: Watch Income: Bad (100 gp/fortnight) | Resources: Great (3rd level spells and masterwork ammo) | Renown: Good (+2 on all charisma skill checks and requesting the aid of any 3rd level character) Initiative: +3 Land Speed: 30ft Status Effects: HP: 94 Str: 20 Dex: 16 Con: 14 Int: 13 Wis: 15 Cha: 10 AC: 26 Touch: 14 Flat-Footed: 23
BAB: 10/5
+1 Adamantine Greatsword
(Class+Bonus+Ranks+Misc)
Gold: 150
Cloak of Resistance +2
Masterwork Thieves' Tools Class Features:
Swashbuckler Rogue
Traits:
Racial Traits:
Feats:
Ony's Tale:
Lieutenant Ony Zimyatov is a harsh man from a harsh land. In Kelorav he has a reputation as an unflinching defender of the of the people and being remarkably hard to kill. He is a remarkably rare figure in the city, an honest cop. Through a mix of casually terrifying the crooked officers, proving too tough or too wily to bump off, and earning the respect of the citizenry, he has become a staple of the city.
Technically speaking, he takes his orders from higher up the chain of command and technically speaking, his jurisdiction has a limit. Of course, other considerations come into play here. Technically speaking, he is doing a job far too many of his colleagues are unwilling to do and technically speaking, he possesses the means to ruin a lot of people if they tried to force him into the status quo. Faced with this reality, a lot of people in the city watch are content to let him fight his battles against the unending tide of corruption and crime. Fortunately, he is very good at fighting. Exactly how he ended up as deadly as his is has become a matter of much debate in various taverns and watch houses. While he certainly does not act like a cold blooded killer, the way he fights when the kid gloves come off suggests that there was a time when that is exactly what he was. The unfortunate few that truly earn his ire and survive the resulting encounter are quick to point to stumps and scars and demand death before fighting the 'Dog' once more. When the blue light filled the city, Ony was one of the ones to find himself branded. It was a situation that brought a smile to his face, for he did not consider the strange new threats overwhelmingly dangerous as much as that the odds had finally been evened against him. The city had seen fit to put him through a trial and he saw no reason that he should falter. Ony's Mask:
The gods saw it fit to grant him a form more befitting an orc than a man and as such Ony is a towering figure, well over six feet tall with more scars than years of age and muscles like corded steel. Also befitting such a metaphor is his face. While not hideous, Ony has the face of a prize fighter who has spent his career being just a touch slower than the other guy. His black hair, pale features and accent place him as a native of Irrisen. If this is the case and not some ruse, it would do much to explain the viciousness he can display when needed.
Ony carries a hefty blade of midnight black nearly as tall as he. While he blade is chipped in places its age only serves to make it tougher. It retains a frightening edge despite the wear of likely more than one lifetime's hard use. Being too long to effectively sheath at his waist, Ony, makes a habit of slinging the sheath over his shoulder but never strapping it there. Generally, he discards the sheath after drawing his blade. Ony dresses as well as he can but on duty he wears the same set of remarkably durable clothes. A long brown leather coat with his rank chevrons emblazoned on each shoulder with a scale mantle and pauldrons. The forearms are reinforced and so are a few sections of the chest and back. ---------------------------------- Sperow Sixsmith of Sixsmith Investigations:
Pistolero Gunslinger/Urban Ranger
Half-Elf Favored Class: Gunslinger Employment: Professional Income: Good (500 gp) | Resources: Decent (Basic Ammo) | Renown: Decent (Nothing) Initiative: +10 Senses: Low-light vision Land Speed: 30ft Status Effects: HP: 94 Str: 10 Dex: 20 Con: 14 Int: 14 Wis: 18 Cha: 10 AC: 30 Touch: 21 Flat-Footed: 22
BAB: 10/5
+1 Revolver
(Class+Bonus+Ranks+Misc)
Gold: 5,751
+2 Studded Darkleaf Cloth
Cloak of Resistance +2
Gunsmith’s Kit
Class Features:
Urban Ranger:
Traits:
Racial Traits:
Feats:
Sixsmith's Story:
Sperow Sixsmith was never a good man. For as long as he can remember Kelorav has been his everything. No father, no mother, just the harsh embrace of this city. Sixsmith adapted and survived, at times crawling upon the fallen backs of his fellows. He knows the city better than many, from years of running, stealing, and hurting to survive. Sixsmith was little better than a feral dog and he knew it.
Ten years ago, though, he met someone and was changed. She was a nun of Shelyn and he, quite romantically, tried to mug her. Incredibly, she gave him her few meager coins and then convinced him to come into her mission for a hot meal. All this in the face of a rusty revolver and a hungry pair of eyes. Before he knew it she had him mopping the floor of her shelter and temple. She paid him for his time and, perhaps for the first time, he had a concern outside his immediate survival. Perhaps he was in love, it would certainly not be outside the realm of possibility, but he knew her first responsibility was to the church and not to a lovesick, semi-reformed criminal. So he continued on, striving to live up to the example set by Nalia. He cleaned, cooked, and ministered to the masses. It was not until someone came to the mission that Sixsmith learned he could use some of his older talents for something other than misery. Little did he know that his choice would lead to Nalia sacrificing everything for his sake. Ten years later, Nalia is dead and the mission burned to the ground. Sixsmith is now a very different man. Sperow Sixsmith, of Sixsmith Investigations. A man who knows the streets of Kelorav better than the back of his hand and always gets the job done. He knows he is not a good man but he also knows that sometimes a good man is not what is needed. The Sight of Sixsmith: Sixsmith does not immediately strike one as a remarkably intimidating individual. Remarkably unremarkable would be a good way to describe him. Neither truly handsome or really that ugly, with an average height and build. Habitually dressed in a short jacket and beat-up leather flat cap, he looks like a day laborer. It's only after he starts asking questions that people figure out that Sixsmith is not a man but closer to some strange force of the city that has decided to lay bare what has been hidden.
Don't lie to us, we know how it will end.
It could actually be a pretty good impetus for his adventuring. Outside of whatever personal investments he has in the quest, gaining experience and Mythic tiers will end up making him pretty much a demi-god and certainly not below the notice of the gods.
22. Parasitic Eyes You are on watch one night when you hear a low keening sound and find yourself unable to move. From the position where you head is frozen, you are able to watch a group of eyeballs approach on optic nerves they manipulate like tentacles. They are all a remarkable green color. As you watch, they fall upon one of your comrades. Prying his eyelid open, one splits vertically to reveal a set of tiny and impossibly sharp teeth. You cannot look away as it devours you friend's eye and slips into the socket itself. The next morning your friend denies feeling anything wrong apart from a nasty headache but every now and then when no one else can see, his eye turns green and grins at you.
21. The Vats Ever since your friends paid that cleric to bring you back to life after an ill-fated encounter, you have been plagued by dreams of waking up in a transparent, fluid-filled vat somewhere underground. As you look around through the sides of the vat, you realize the cavernous room is full of hundreds of these vats, each containing copies of your body in various stages of development. In the vat next to your rests a ruined corpse still bearing the wounds that previously claimed your life. Tadpole-like creatures with rudimentary human faces feast upon in and each other in swarms, slowly growing larger. You are about to try to escape when your friends arrive and one injects something into the fluid around you. Things go hazy and then you awaken.
This entire thread is excellent and sumptuous, much like the fluid that collects behind a sheep's eyes after depriving it of sleep for a month with fear.
Anything by Terry Pratchett. He does a lot of brilliant satire but many stories do have very good plots and mercy does actually play a role in the proceedings. I really must recommend his Night Watch series, starting with Guards! Guards! It is a great series dedicated to the hapless guards of the fantasy world. Going Postal is another good one, followed by Making Money. Hogfather is a great seasonal tale.
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Seriously dude, take a step back and remember that this is just a game and this is only going to lead to escalation. Do the adult thing and limit your play-time with the guy, it does wonders.
Hmm angles hiding their faces? I don't know sounds a bit obtuse to me.
Held in place by elf glue. And we all know, 'elf glue' is a potent adhesive excreted by special glands behind an elf's ears.
I'm going to go ahead and nip this in the bud. They don't, at high levels casters entirely outpace martials and there is not a way to balance it without reworking the entire system.
I hate that moment where you finish a wall of text in your alias and then the Paizo website eats it.
Soooo... The obvious answer is to be an entitled, power-hungry DM who wants to make his players feel small and worthless? How is that fun for anyone but you?
Sooo... it's a paladin without as much of an alignment restriction?
As a player, I am very realistic about weapons, armor, animal companions, etc. While in the fancy hunting lodge, my Unbreakable Fighter is definitely not wearing his full plate. When the giant spider attacks, he sucks it up and pulls his less bulky and awkward sword and shield out. No, he was not wearing his full plate in the middle of the night when the werewolves attacked, their teeth will break on his iron hard pectorals, thank you very much. My alchemist does not travel on horseback with a loaded crossbow on his person. I don't care about the mechanics of it, he does not want to get bucked off his horse when it manages to jostle the firing mechanism into going off and shooting it in the rump. My archer does not travel with his longbow strung, that is how you end up ruining a perfectly good bow by warping the wood. So no, my inquisitor is not bringing his half-feral giant scorpion with him to court. He is slapping a pair of giant rubber bands on those claws and leaving a pile of dead birds just out of its reach to keep it distracted.
Seems to me all those things are achievable and well-represented by mechanics. Since you don't want the wizard to do all of that and ten other things before breakfast, I'll ask you the same I asked Rynjin, what do you want the wizard to do? What's his niche? To be focused, to be more of a swiss army knife as opposed to the nation of Switzerland.
I play martials, I love playings martials. I pretty much flatly refuse to play anything with 9 levels of spells. Why do I do this? Time and again, I have been shown that casters (Wizards in particular) can and will render martials obsolete. I play martials because A) I don't want to have to play a caster to be relevant and B) I despise the idea that a single class can beat any situation. My quixotic quest means I am getting better and better at building martials to ruin the days of casters and I'm well aware of my options for doing so. This does not mean I am okay with how powerful casters are. Essentially the primary argument I'm seeing in favor of giving wizards more power is that they spent their lives focusing their OCD into piercing the veil of reality and bending to their will. That's fine and dandy, 'cept the ranger, the fighter, the rogue and the barbarian have been doing the exact same thing in their respective fields. This should be reflected in gameplay and frankly the same reasoning can be applied to any of them. The rogue should be unseeable because he has spent his life learning how to move in the shadows and strike unseen. The ranger should be a king of the wilds, moving swiftly to hunt his foes down, because that's what they do. The barbarian should be a typhoon of terror because their rage lets them shrug off all but the most dire of blows. The fighter should be able to stand up to any threat with skill and tactics on his side. The wizard should not be able to do all of this and ten other things by breakfast. The point is not to have an ego trip, the point is that they are all supposed be excellent in their respective fields and have different options when it comes to handling in game problems but in the end be on about the same level.
Hire some "Ladies" to keep him entertained for the evening, extra points for telling them not to take no for an answer. (Note: This can be interpreted any number of interesting ways)
I'll have you know, what may appear to be a six-foot-five, steel plated, murder hobo is actually a modestly successful tailor and businessman when he is not out fighting werewolves and chasing down necromancers.
This is a perfect example of the need for the DM to enforce real-world consequences. What would guards think about such irresponsible use of magic? Did the wizard not think or not care? From the sound of it, he did not care. If that is the case then he should be punished. NPCs should react organically to this sort of situation. Best case scenario for the PCs is that even if the guards did not come after him, the local populace would fear and hate the PCs. No one would be willing to do business with the PCs. People would bar them from their homes and run in fear. Word would spread to other townships and the PCs would become Pariahs without some sort of drastic action. Worst case scenario, they face execution or other medieval punishments (Hands cut off or tongues remove or branded for their crimes, the possibilities go on and on) and those that associate with them could face banishment on top of the rest of the stuff described above. A spellcaster would face the worst of it, brutal methods would likely be used to remove his spellcasting abilities due to the fear of an unhinged spellcaster running rampant.
Tracker of the Society is really good for a ranger if your DM allows Pathfinder Faction traits. It gives you a +1 to initiative and +2 to survival in any of your favored terrains. Suspicious is also good if you want to take advantage of a decent wisdom score. It gives you sense motive as a class skill and +1 in it.
The Black Death was mostly spread via mice and rat. Their fleas would bite people and infect them. If you want to make it a little easier on them, you could add an incubation period. That is to say a chunk of time where the effects have yet to set in. That could also add some cinematic tension toward the end of the adventure.
"None," Guy replied, strapping his axes back on and sheathing his sword. He had tucked his tail into his pants and began wrapping a scarf over the top of his head to hide his horns. "Fizz, Kara, and Eiliana, you should stick to the bushes as far away as you can and stick together, it will be more difficult for them to isolate you. Distract them with some magic then Ravishar and I will hit them hard and fast from the other side. If they're just armigers we should be able to shake them up and get them to make mistakes. Shanwen will prove more tricky."
"Welcome Ustalav, son," giving the man a companionable pat on the shoulder. "I once stayed in what seemed like a perfectly normal town where people's heads had a bad habit of becomin' detached and attackin' people. I arrived with a band of Varisians and as night fell, all of the townsfolk fell quiet and rushed home. About half an hour later, their heads were swarming over the town, devourin' anythin' that was not one of them."
"Hmmm, yes, human. Complete with the horns and tail typical of my species," Guy replied, at least he was clean now.
Gotta love how low level combat is exactly like craps.
Other way around, gonna go two weapon combat style and supplement with the long range feats.
Guy steps into tavern, not having much else to do today. Despite the overtures of friendship from Janiven and the free meal he had come fully kitted out. His tarnished scale mail still managed a few glints under his coat and a longsword rested within easy reach of his hand. Opposite the longsword were a trio of throwing axes. He would not have survived in this city if he trusted everyone that claimed to be a friend and he certainly was not going to just take the word of someone who knew considerably more about him than he did about them. His sword and armor looked like they had been lifted out of the Common Dottari's armory because, well, they had been. Without a severance package or even his back pay, Guy had helped himself to the gear he had used all of those years. His quartermaster had known well Guy well enough not to bother asking for them back. "Right, I'm here, the others coming?" He spoke as though he expected this to fall apart at any second.
Just throw in some murdered parents, that always works.
Mostly he's been making his rounds around the major population centers of Ustalav, following up a bunch of dead-ends and getting frustrated. The Barovia lead is supposed to be one of many he is working through. Initial arrival was likely through Caliphas by boat but he's been in Ustalav for a while now. His hunt for the NPC was mostly just a hook to get him into the main quest line. I left it murky to allow it to be manipulated or dismissed at whim by the DM. It is very likely he has been getting into trouble while in Ustalav since he still needs to eat and is afflicted with that horrible obsessive compulsive disorder known as being an "Adventurer." It is entirely possible he has run into you guys through various means. Easiest right now would likely be meeting Lyra since she is a Cleric of Pharasma and there are certain hazards to being an adventurer in Ustalav. Jeremiah does pay reverence to Pharasma so a Pharasman temple would likely be one of his first stops if he was injured. |
