Riddlewrong's page

Hey, I'm okay with that.

Once she fails one of these checks, she immediately drops to –1 (or loses 1 additional hit point, if her total is below –1). On the following round, she drowns.

This kind of makes it seem like if you fail the check after being submerged and unconscious, you die. I guess I misinterpreted it!

Woah, the gameplay tab doesn't say there's a new post there, but it's there! I'm going to post in a little bit. :D

Realistic Likeness:

When you are in human form, you can take the shape of a specific individual.
Prerequisite: Kitsune.
Benefit: You can precisely mimic the physical features of any individual you have encountered. When you use your racial change shape ability, you can attempt to take the form of an individual, granting you a +10 circumstance bonus on Disguise checks made to fool others with your impersonation.

There's the answer, it was in the feat's description all along.

"When you are in human form, you can take the shape of a specific individual."

Realistic Likeness

I was wondering why I couldn't find many people asking about this seemingly confusing feat, but it just turns out that everyone reads better than we do. It's extremely straightforward. xD

So, yes, you get a +27 to mimic any individual human. You can mimic other races with the disguise skill as normal, but you would be at your base +7 on those checks.

I believe this only applies to appearing human, even with the feat. The scope of the original ability is that you have a specific human form. This would allow you to have a more broad human form, but still limited to humans as per the base ability. This is also more consistent with folklore. That's how I believe it to be RAI. Your final adjustment, even with this, is +25, because there is a -2 penalty for impersonating a creature of another race. Since humans are by far the most plentiful race in this setting, I think it's more than fair to limit the ability to that. I don't think it was ever intended to allow a person to have the ability to handwave all but the most extreme disguise checks from level 1. :P Think about it: Why would a Kitsune who has the ability to turn into one specific human individual suddenly be able to turn into any individual of any humanoid race? That doesn't make sense!

To give you an example of the difficulty in disguising yourself as something that you're not:

If you tried to disguise yourself as an elderly female gnome, you would be at a -36 penalty. If the person you were trying to fool with the disguise was her lover? The DC for your -36 check is their perception check +10. :P You also have to make that check once per hour! This is the most extreme case that is even possible in the rules for disguise. If you can mitigate the majority of a -36 penalty at level 1 without expending any resources, something is not right. :P

Upon some further research, The PFSRD has this to say in the feat's description:

Editor's Note: The text of this feat states that you can mimic an "individual" which you have encountered, but it likely should specify that Kitsune have the ability to turn into humans, so GMs are encouraged to read the feat as follows: "You can precisely mimic the physical features of any human you have encountered..."

Now, we all know that the PFSRD isn't an official site, but I think it's a pretty respected source. The feat probably should have been worded this way.

Lastly, from a pure feat balance perspective, there are no other feats that give a flat +10 all-encompassing bonus to a skill to my knowledge, with the added bonus of giving someone an at-will spell on top of that.

This feat essentially would allow him to alter self at will.

Druids can't do this until level 13, and they're a shapeshifting class.

It's just too bad that Hakaru's future companions are about as subtle as a brick to the face. xD

P.S. - I actually considered playing a wizard quite a bit in the beginning of this. I had an idea for an Acadamae student that was pretty promising. It's kinda rare to be without a primary arcane caster in a group!

Ready, just hammering out the final touches on the backstory/fluff. I've got a little time tonight, so I'm hoping to finish it up now.

I have another exam next Tuesday, so I'm studying my ass off. I'm working on the background little by little when I can fit in some creative time, but that's the reason I haven't finished it yet!

The Inner Sea World Guide lists the following as common male Varisian/Chelish names:

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Chelish:

Aerodus, Alexite, Gellius, Grachius,
Gruckalus, Lurconarr, Manius, Marcellano, Morvius,
Pavo, Pellius, Petronicus, Rutilus, Solangus, Ursion

Varisian:

Alezandaru, Andrezi, Dortlin,
Eugeni, Henric, Ionacu, Iozif, Kazallin,
Marduzi, Silvui, Skender, Tiberiu, Viorec,
Zandu, Zstelian

Hope that helps!

I like having dwarves in the party. :)

I should have everything completely done by tomorrow, I think.

This is gonna be one wacky group, I can already tell. :P

P.S. - There are no short people in our group. Who are we all going to pick on!?

@Salsa - How many more people are we getting?

Right now, it looks like we have:

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Raina (Human Unarmed Fighter) (Alice)

Unnamed (Kitsune Archaeologist Bard) (TheRedMage)

Vrash Talen? (Human? Sable Company Marine Ranger?) (Vrash)

Unnamed (Tiefling Rogue) (Riddlewrong)

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I think Ninivic was going to make a cleric, but he hasn't been around for a few days. I guess we'll see.

I usually just play what I think will be fun and as long as everyone else is having fun, I say that's all that matters. I've been spending WAY too much time writing this character's backstory and absolutely agonizing over what to name him. Crunch was the easy part. The rest is what I really enjoy about RPGs in general: Role-playing!

Allow me to plead the case of the bard for a moment, if you don't mind.

Bards are useful in combat (moreso than other casters at low levels), so I dunno who put the silly idea in your head that they're not!

You get medium BaB (so you can actually fight when you're out of spells), spells (which you can cast in armor), AND songs, plus charisma as a main stat and access to all social skills + knowledge skills + bonuses to skills you didn't even take! If you want to go with a deception/trickery angle, I don't know why you WOULDN'T go bard, especially since you're not focusing on the main rogue skills anyway. They get access to charm spells, illusion spells, and a HUGE amount of archetypes to fit virtually any concept.

AND rogues only have two knowledge skills as class skills out of the box: (local) and (dungeoneering). If you want to have a knowledge skill focus, you're gonna be taking them at lower values than the bard or having to pick background traits that allow you to take a couple as class skills (which doesn't let you pick traits to boost anything else). Bards get access to all knowledge skills. Just sayin'.

Plus, Kitsune make great bards.

I'm not saying you're wrong, but I'm thinking maybe you want to play a bard but you don't realize it. Virtually everything you want to do, the bard does exceptionally well, if not better! xD

I can't tell you how many times my Serpent's Skull group has benefit from having a bard, it's immeasurable. I am a big fan of having them in a group, if you can't already tell. Just playing devil's advocate for a minute here, don't mind me!

EDIT: Alice totally beat me to the punch there, but I'd just like to echo her points about the builds -- there are some great ones for what you want to do. Check it out!

You probably assumed that it would be a charismatic character because that is what I originally planned to make! :P

I don't mind if you want to change your character. We haven't even got a full party yet, so it's not like this is last minute or anything.

As far as skills go, I can tell you what my rogue has so that you can figure out which skills are going to end up overlapping.

Acrobatics: +7

Appraise: +7

Bluff: +5

Climb: +6

Disable Device: +11

Escape Artist: +7

Knowledge (Local): +7

Linguistics: +7

Perception: +4/5 vs. traps

Sleight of Hand: +7

Stealth: +9

Swim: +6

As you can see, he has a lot of the more intelligence and dexterity based skills covered. He also has a moderate strength, but that's not as much of a skill consideration outside of climb/swim.

Charisma skills? Not so much. xD He also only has one knowledge skill (local), so those are pretty open if you're looking to go that route. By the way, some skill overlapping is okay and I'm not going to kill you if we both do one or two things that are the same. Sometimes having two people with the same skill in combination with aid another can mean the difference between success and failure, anyway. So don't bend over backwards to avoid a skill just because I have it. :)

I love it! This is character development gold. Let's do it. :D

I'll write all about it in his background tomorrow. For now, it's bed time!

Thanks for your input!

Crunch is done!

He shares a common background with Raina in that he was tortured by Lamm and left for dead, but he had been employed by Lamm for a longer length of time before being cut loose.

Because he also primarily fights without weapons (claw attack racial feature) he and Raina may have trained together a few times, but his savage, aggressive slashing style might not have meshed well with her defensive, more graceful technique. This could have led to a parting of ways (which makes sense since Raina earns an honest living with her skills and he resorts to thievery and other underhanded means).

It's sort of a "two sides of the same coin" thing.

It doesn't significantly impose on your background because their actual time spent together was probably sporadic at best, but at the very least this could establish them as acquaintances.

I'm still writing all the details. I should have the finished character ready by tomorrow.

I'm going to go with a Tiefling rogue, I think. He'll be decently skilled, but definitely not a face for the most part (has an alright bluff check, at least), so someone else is going to have to be pretty.

It was just an idea, not something I really had my heart set on. :)

I have a question!

My character is shaping up well, but as we've noted, his focus is more on social skills and skullduggery than combat.

Would you allow me to have him hire an NPC mercenary to act as a bodyguard? For a nobleman, this seems pretty in-character and sensical. The going rate according to Ultimate Equipment is 1-3gp a day, but it says that hirelings of higher skill levels may require more pay.

If you allowed me to do this, how much would you say this NPC costs? I'm flexible on this (flat rate/day, percentage of loot, or other special arrangement).

To make it less work for you, I can play the NPC (I wouldn't make him/her do anything unrealistic).

Let me know what you think.

Well, yes.

Arcane Armor Training

Ignore 10% spell failure as a swift action. However, it requires caster level 3rd. You might not have that for a looooong time with this build. On the plus side, you already meet the proficiency in light armor requirement, and the proficiency in medium armor requirement of its upgraded form:

Arcane Armor Mastery

However, this requires caster level 7th, which makes it a distant goal.

Certain bard builds get a similar ability to cast bard spells in light/medium armor, but.. that's for bards, which doesn't help you. xD There may be some other options, but I can't think of any off the top of my head.

Outside of that, there are a couple of other factors to consider.

You can cast arcane spells that don't have somatic components while wearing armor without incurring spell failure.

You could just roll the dice and hope you don't fail! The chances are actually pretty low in light armor.

You can level from 1-3 as a cleric or oracle and wear your armor the whole time, then at level 4 you can start taking sorcerer levels and still wear light armor with the feat. That way, you will never be put in a position where you're not wearing armor. That delays your arcane abilities and emphasizes your divine abilities, though, and I don't know if that's what you want!

Oracles use Charisma as their casting stat, so you wouldn't need Empyreal Bloodline to make Oracle/Sorcerer work. It would work just fine with Mystic Theurge, but you'd have a significant delay in spell progression, as Alice said.

Sorceror/Oracle

Pros:

Only requires one stat (Cha).

Doesn't require preparation of spells in advance.

Cons:

Limited spell access.

Not eligible for Mystic Theurge until level 9.

Gets spells at a slower rate.

Cleric/Druid + Wizard

Pros:

Access to the majority of spells in the game.

Eligible for Mystic Theurge at level 7.

Gets spells at a faster rate.

Cons:

Requires preparation of spells in advance.

Requires two stats (Wis/Int).

These are NOT all the pros and cons, obviously! That would take waaay too long to get into in a single post. There are also a few other combinations that allow you to mix/match the pros/cons above (Empyreal Bloodline Sorc/Cleric or Druid, for example). There are some other differences based on class features, of course, but since those are only going to scale to level 3 or 4 in each class, the points above are some of the major pros and cons. Hopefully this has been a little bit helpful.

@RedMage That was my thinking as well. I think we've got the actual combat stuff covered very well here, so a skill monkey/face is probably what I'm going to do. He'll still have some opportunistic ability to be useful in combat as well (in theory!). It'll be interesting to say the least. :) It'll also allow me to dust off my serious roleplaying pants.

@Alice Nice character! I'm impressed with how this group is shaping up. :D

I think we're going to have a good amount of melee in the group, so Trip is probably going to be useful right out of the box. Grapple IS good for control, though.

Oh, I already kinda guessed that since he was staring at Aerys longingly in like.. every single scene. Haha.

Maybe now we can finally figure out what his deal is.

Ah, I assumed that it was steep enough to incur falling damage! That changes a lot. Cut him down! :D

Personally? I think you should let the cannibal grab him.

Sounds crazy, but hear me out. He's only 5 feet from the top, and 45 feet from the bottom. He will die at -8 hp, and he is currently at -2. Chances are, if he's cut loose, the fall will be fatal. There's nobody at the bottom to catch him since everyone is climbing up. Climbing down while trying to carry him is unnecessarily risky for both Jack and the person carrying him. We have no idea if this cannibal has a ranged weapon, and he very well may start firing at whomever is trying to help Jack down. If I were to hazard a guess, he's going to be pretty pissed off.

If you let the cannibal pull him up, there's a chance he'll be skewered, but the cannibal is probably quite aware of how close Alexite is to the top, and has his own survival as a priority here. He'll probably address a conscious combatant banging on his shelter before worrying about what to do with the currently harmless Jack. Once you take care of the cannibal, you can worry about how to transport or heal Jack.

Of course, that all depends on the rest of you being able to climb up there, but time won't be as much of a concern as it is currently. If Alexite has a rope, he can toss it down to the rest of you.

Even if the cannibal tries to drag Jack off, he won't be able to outrun anyone unless he's got a way to transport him other than on foot.

This is just a suggestion, of course. I don't know how Carpe would actually handle the process of getting Jack down. I'm just erring on the side of worst-case-scenario.

Oh, I didn't even think of that. Yeah, I wouldn't have a problem converting an NPC.

Jack is such a fussy eater, it would be kind of funny to see the cannibals try and fatten him up.

On the off chance that Jack is killed during this encounter, would you like me to roll a new character? xD

I had some mild lag earlier in the day, but nothing so crippling as all that! I do notice that the paizo website in general has some relatively frequent lag storms, though.

I think everyone who can go has already gone at this point. Well, Dragolan might want to dress his post up a little, but his roll is there, at least. xD

P.S. - It took about 30 seconds for this post to go through, and like 2 minutes for the page to refresh so that I could post about how laggy it was. So yeah, I get what you're experiencing now!

It's been nearly 2 days since the last post. Everything okay?

@Herald: Oh, don't worry about it. It seems like you've pretty much got all your bases covered here. :)

If you need an alternate, let me know!

Hi! My name is Daniel, I'm kinda new to the PbP scene here (I'm in only one other game) and I can post pretty often throughout the day. I'm more of a roleplayer than a combat enthusiast, so you can expect that my character will be fairly simple and straightforward in the fighting department.

Thus, I give you: Reginald D'loria

P.S.- I don't mind making a second character as a backup. I'm used to playing gritty games, and I enjoy the risk of losing it all. I'm a good sport. :P

I'm interested in joining. I can make a wizard to round out the group. I was thinking something along the lines of an older gentleman. A sage, scribe, or librarian with a penchant for magical writings and whatnot, but he never took it too seriously until his later years (thus why he's only level 1).

I was thinking he'd be kind, well-known, and well-liked by the community. Unmarried, charitable, wise, and morally stalwart.

How much detail do you want of their pre-death lives?

Looks like GM Evo also abandoned the other PbP they were running before it even started. No reason for his/her absence was given, so those people are in the same boat you guys are.

Sometimes people realize how much work something is going to be and just decide that it would be easier to walk away.

Either that, or they were in a terrible accident. Who knows?

Yes.

Thank you. :)

The barbarian's rage ability specifies that she incurs a -2 penalty to AC while raging. Does this penalty also affect Touch and Flat-footed AC values?