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I immediately made to the connection between the kineticist and Carrie or Firestarter in a similar to way that the gunslinger class screams Dark Tower's Roland. But with that sort of context, the class feels properly occult as that is the bread and butter of so many of Stephen King's horror books. Just my take on it however.
So I am in the midst of piecing together a "campaign" for my home group of players that want to try their hand at Organized Play, and here is what I have constructed so far. Of course, there is also the issue of playing fast and loose with with the timeline of world events as some of these scenarios are based on events in year 4 or in year 6, and it is just going to sort of hand-waved away. Some are chosen for their ability to make a flowing tale for the same group of pathfinders making their way across the world, and some are chosen for being just wonderfully written scenarios that any new PFS player should experience. Overall, my players expressed wanting to experience the "pulp serial adventure" feel of the Society, so I am trying to preserve that while creating a flowing narrative. But any feedback, comments, or suggestions would be fantastic. I am especially curious about if others have tried something similar and how did it work out? The Scenario List: Part I - The Absalom Saga S5-08: The Confirmation - Becoming Pathfinders (Level 1) S6-18: The Overflow Archives - Well written scenario that just feels like the type of terrible job thrown at new Pathfinders S0-05: The Mists of Mwangi - A classic that everyone should play, and it gives players the chance to experience the famous Blakros Museum S6-05: Slave Ships of Absalom - Another great one based in the City at Center of the World showing some more complexities of the world's social and political climate (Level 2) Part II - The Mwangi Saga
Part III - The Shackles Saga
Part IV - The Planar Saga
Part V - The Lissala Saga
Part VI - The Retirement Saga
I have found myself rapidly becoming a fan of the psychic class, so I would probably rank Tiefling Psychic as my top combo. Buuuuuut if I could pick absolutely any combo (e.g. a combo that would never be legal in PFS because this race boon will never happen and application of this feat is questionable), it would be a Goblin Monkey Gunslinger with dual medium pistols (using goblin gunslinger feat) and reloading with help from its tail in a horrific mix of booming gunfire, high pitch shrieking, and billowing gunsmoke.
Oh wow. This sounds super neat. I would definitely throw in the idea of my very first character, but it was such a horrid design as I was in 4th grade. It was an Oriental Adventure's campaign (3.5) where my character was a wizard (Wu Jen)/fighter (samurai) multi classes elf. And most traumatic moment was trying to save the party's cleric and having her arm bit off by a dragsaving the party cleric. Needless to say it greatly reduced her effectiveness with a sword. But she had some nice big blast spells which was fun.
And I still don't actually think you can get a magic version of the no cost weapons like sling, club, or quarterstaff because you need a masterwork version (300 gp) then you add the enchantment cost for a total cost of 2,300 gp.
Corsario, if you are ok with me borrowing a feat from a book not on the list (Pathfinder Player Companion: Advanced Class Origins), I would like to tweak one part of my build and take the Fencing Grace feat instead of Dervish Dancing (and replace improved initiative with weapon focus (rapier) so I meet the prerequisites). It would feel much better flavour-wise for the character to use a rapier instead of a scimitar as the latter has more of a Qadiran feel. And given the rocky history of Qadia and Taldor, I can't really justify why my character would have been trained in a scimitar over a rapier. Anyway, just a thought. Feel free to say no.
I would really like to roll up a stalker a la batgirl, and I can get an alias/submission up soon. And personally, I think the class seems like one that would shine the most in a whole party of vigilantes so the story can play off of the secret identity aspect for everyone, so this campaign sounds great.
For Biomorphs:
You wake up in a small room. Everything feels off and muddled as you slowly slip back into consciousness. The room is bathed in harsh white light and reeks of low-grade commercial disinfectant. You are on your back and strapped down to some sort of medical table. Next thing you notice someone humming a song. You don't recognize the tune, but you can tell it is sung very poorly. Looking around you notice the singing is coming for a short and stocky bouncer. He's male with wild hair and a chinstrap beard both an unnatural shade of orange and with glowing violet eyes. He sings and moved gracefully around you in the low-g environment as he examines you closely. Prodding here, poking there, shining lights into this, and listening to that. He is clearly performing some sort of medical examination, but it all feels painfully archaic to you. Something about him just feels... off, and eventually it clicks: he's a beta. You aren't quite sure how you know, but the bouncer is definitely a fork. As your senses slowly return, he starts talking to you in a gruff baritone. Welcome to Penelope, she ain't much to look at, but the old tin can will get you where you need to go. he says with a smile as he unfastens the straps holding you to the bed. Now, I ain't been told too much about what's going on here. Only to patch you up when you wake up and make sure you get where you're going. Clothes and the requisitioned gear are over there on the table, and you can meet the rest of your um... friends? down in the mess hall. He starts to leave, but stops and spins around, Name's Atticus by the way... well, I'm one of them. We're all that's left to run the crew, so if you need anything, just track one of us down.
For Synthmorphs: You boot up in a dim room propped up in a chair. Everything seems to be fine and functional, and looking over you see a bouncer working with his back to you. His feet rapidly type away on a very outdated terminal while he eats a sandwich with his hands. Noticing you have awoken, he turns around with a look of suspicion and a raised eyebrow. The man is short and stocky with wild hair and a chinstrap beard both an unnatural shade of orange and with glowing violet eyes. Oh good, looks like yer workin', his gruff baritones notes halfheartedly. He seems to be talking more to himself than to you. Stuff's on that table. Clothes and gear. Grab them and go to the mess hall. You'll meet the others there. As he turns back to his work, it dawns on you that something is strange about this man. He is a beta. You are not positive about why you know that or where you may have seen him before, but the bouncer is definitely a fork. Additionally you quickly notice how rundown this place is. There is not properly artificial gravity, and the whole ship looks like a mild solar wind would tear it apart. But you see your clothing and equipment on a nearby table as he said it would be, and the sooner you get to work, the sooner you can be out of this place...
It's finals week for my students, so I'm swamped with papers and grading. So if anyone is holding us up it is me :) And, Viv, I'm happy either way. I was thinking rolling the penalties might be fun. But if it would be more of a frustration than a good opportunity for role play, we can skip it and assume you are already sleeved and synced.
So assuming everyone is still ok with Snowman's original timeline we will start around Sunday-Monday (stateside that is, so please adjust accordingly for your time zone). And to answer your question Ahran, I would probably say an emergency farcaster will be more prudent. Unless by wanting two copies of the morph, you meant that you were planning on running both simultaneously with a fork of yourself because that could be wildly interesting.
Assume this first mission will be a bit more rough and physical. This won't be true for the overall campaign, but without giving away too much, these secondary morphs should be able to take a hit and survive in an unfavourable environment (such as space, so vacsuits are highly recommended). And just as a general thing for any character, I am always a fan of interesting choices that are not exactly optimal mechanics-wise, but lead to better story telling. And I think that is particularly applicable to a universe like EP, but that is merely a suggestion on my part. If you are the type of gamer who needs his/her characters to be super optimal, I don't want to hinder your choices :) Some clarifying info that your characters would know, all from the core book: Firewall:
"'There cannot be another Fall' — this is the mantra that drives Firewall. Firewall is a secret, cross-faction organization dedicated to safeguarding transhumanity from existential risks: aliens, weapons of mass destruction, hypercorp experimentation, seed AIs, and so on. If anything threatens transhumanity as a whole, Firewall is dedicated to stopping that danger at any cost. "The strength of Firewall rests in its members, known as sentinels. Found in all factions and across all locales, sentinels are often diametrically opposed when it comes to social, economic, and political ideologies, to the point they might come to blows over their fervent beliefs. Yet when the survival of transhumanity is at stake, such extreme differences are set aside for the greater good." "Firewall is a clandestine organization with an unknown number of members, coordinated by an inner circle of dedicated veterans known as proxies. Though its existence is known to many of the powerful and influential factions and individuals throughout the solar system, its existence is denied and its activities are kept carefully shrouded."
Sentinels: "Sentinels are the soldiers of Firewall, the reserve troops called to instant active status whenever danger is perceived. Regardless of their location or current affairs, sentinels are expected to move instantly when called into play. It is their own responsibility to cover their absences from their 'normal life' during each mission. There is no applying to join Firewall. Instead, Firewall selects an individual for induction based upon that person’s skills, knowledge, occupation, security clearance, location, status, and a host of other criteria. While such selections usually originate from a proxy, sentinels can exercise authority to bring new initiates into the conspiracy as a mission demands — and they often do. Any sentinel recruiting a new supporter, however, becomes responsible for the new inductee and their actions. If lines are crossed, both will bear the brunt of the consequences. "The vetting process for joining Firewall is necessarily brutal, as sentinels face harsh opponents and must make hard choices in the field. If an individual agrees to accept the invitation, there is no turning back. Each inductee is submitted to a battery of trials and tests. While these vary, they may include deep background searches, fork interrogation, psychosurgery trials, and tests of loyalty. Psychosurgery is performed not to program obedience, but to analyze the recruit’s responses to various situations — an extreme-parameters test to see when a prospective sentinel will break. Many potential members are carefully analyzed by a Promethean with expertise in character judgment and personality profiling. Those who don’t pass such tests are either killed in a manner that they must resort to an earlier backup or have their memories altered so that they have no recollection of the conspiracy. "Firewall walks a fine line. The concept of dogmatic 'unquestioned loyalty' is both counterproductive and anathema to everything for which Firewall stands. Its sentinels need to have the capacity for
"New sentinels are given a code name and fake identification. Outside of the proxies, the real-world identity of a given sentinel is a closely guarded secret. Sentinels are even discouraged from sharing such information with members of their own teams, though this line is often crossed. Additionally, each sentinel is required to upload a backup to Firewall’s secure servers and to update this backup regularly. This backup serves a dual purpose, enabling all sentinels to be retrieved should they die, but also putting a copy of the sentinel in Firewall’s hands should they ever need to interrogate them. "Sentinels are all connected via the Eye [This is your i-rep score], Firewall’s peer-to-peer social network. Though each operates behind their assumed identity, they remain in contact, sharing information and resources as needed."
The second morph is paid for by the organization, so it won't come out of your credits or CP budget. Let's say each morph was bought from a 35,000 credit budget. So you can pick the morph, gear, implants, etc. as long as it is under that cap. You can raise the cap either by chipping in your own money, or by having defects in the morph (maybe it is a particularly well-used body). So negative traits give you 1k per CP, and positive traits cost 1k per CP. For example, I pick a ghost (40k), but it has a low pain tolerance (20CP, so +20k) and is limber (10CP, so -10k). Now I have 5,000 credits left to spend on augmentation and implants and what ever gear I will need. Does that seem fair enough? I am sorta making up the plan for the second morph as I go. I want them to be useable enough that you survive, but clearly chosen by a group that wants to keep an operation under budget.
Ok then, assuming it is ok with Snowman (and hopefully he still wants to play as a PC if not GMing), then I can work more on flushing out my ideas. The short and sweet of the story is that you are all sentinels for Firewall. With varying degrees of success, you have all worked on missions with each other before, so the characters should know each other (although if someone wants to play the new guy to the squad, that is fine too). Your router has called you up for a mission, and you are expected to egocast and then be resleeved into a morph. Once everyone is there in person, you will be given the mission specs. Expect it to be story/interaction heavy, but it is a good idea to have character who can handle himself or herself in a sticky situation. In addition to your build and primary morph, I would appreciate you building a second suboptimal morph for this first mission (think of it like a company car assigned to you by Firewall, and not one your character is accustomed to using). Just to clarify, Sentinels come from all backgrounds and ideologies. They have normal lives outside of duty (and the two lives are typically kept secret from one another). Sentinels all have codenames and backup insurance provided by Firewall. EDIT: please also create and give a personality to your Muse as well.
I would be up for trying to GM, but I might need some help or corrections now and then on the rules side. I had some ideas for a campaign involving Firewall agents along the lines of "Lack" (the short story at the start of the core book) or maybe a gate crashing campaign. So if there is interest there and if Viv will help with the rules side, then I'd be happy to try.
Party so far:
Awesome! Looks like all slots are filled. @Gilthanis, either option would be fine. @Stemboy, we can wait a bit for the cleric assuming it isn't a huge delay (say by Monday?). It'll give everyone time to update character sheets, and it will make the APL 3 which is what the module was originally intended for. Recruitment is closed.
"Razmir the Living God used his power to conquer an entire country; now he and his mask-wearing priests enforce peace and generosity—though some say their tools are intimidation and fear. His worshipers preach charity and self-worth, blaming rival faiths for crafting lies about the glories of the Living God. Now the cult has come to the city of Tamran, feeding the poor and promising happiness to those who serve Razmir. Yet ugly rumors persist of bribery, extortion, and strange disappearances associated with the new temple. Are these stories just gossip and lies spread by rival faiths? Or is the church of the Living God more than it seems?" ---------- Looking for 4-6 players to run through Masks of the Livings God. As a module, it counts for 3XP and 4PP, and PCs need to be levels 2-4 and of course PFS legal. I would appreciate a post rate of 1+ times a day, and I personally try to check a few times per day to reply to player actions/questions.
x10 = 120gp Couple of things I wanted to run by you to ensure it is ok: Somewhat long block of text: Personality-wise I had something in mind along the lines of a Hellboy/Wolverine type only more intellectual. He was never fully accepted by others, far older than he appears, and somewhat washed up compared to his prime. A mere shadow of his former potential who gave up dreams of greatness long ago. At least that is, until he got involved with the party. With that in mind, I was hoping to use the middle-age adjustments (-1 to all phys stats, and +1 to all mental stats) I was also hoping to replace the Darkness SLA with the scent ability from the variant tiefling ability table (p.17 #54) in Blood of Fiends. That is ssuming you don't think that would be too out of line with general character power. Also for traits, I was hoping to pick Pragmatic Activator (UMD checks are Int based) from Ultimate Campaign, and Clever Wordplay (Bluff checks are Int based) from Pathfinder Society Primer as both fit my character concept and the archetype I chose. If either or both of those are not ok to pick, I will more than happily choose different options from the sources listed. Offsetting my traits will be the rather substantial drawback of tainted spirit: "When you were a child, a parent or other person with authority over you made a minor pact with a fiend on your behalf, stealing some of your vitality in exchange for a minor boon. At the end of any combat, you must attempt a Fortitude saving throw. The DC is 10 + the number of rounds you acted in combat. If you fail this save, you become fatigued for 10 minutes per round you acted during that encounter." Which I think will provide some fun role-play options.
Hmm... Yeah, I think I have a similar issue as your Bariaur. I love the build and concept, but it seems tricky to keep going for long-term without becoming one-note. Definitely appreciated the chance to tool around with the race builder though, so thanks for that Litany :). But I'll quickly rework the stats into a Tiefling and have that posted later today.
I think I might modify my submission a bit, if that is ok. I am thinking maybe switching the race to Tiefling to make the character a bit more conventional as we already have a healthy dose of the strange. So maybe a washed up investigator who spends too much time in taverns these days? Any thoughts on that, GM or fellow PCs? Essentially, I want to be able to make the best story overall as a group, since Planescape is pretty heavy on the narrative.
I'll have my character finished and posted tonight. Looking at a Modron Investigator (Empiricist archetype). A highly curious detail oriented type who takes notes obsessively. EDIT: I was mistaken about sizing, and you were correct originally. Looking over the rogue Modron again from 2e, they are all slow and medium sized. So I will change from small to medium for the class.
@LitanyOfCurses A few ideas I had for tweaks to the Modron, let me know what you think and feel free to accept or reject any of it: Modron: Outsider (Native, Android) 3 RP -Outsider type because they are a native of Mechanus. Android subtype as it is required for the Constructed and Emotionless traits. Ability Score (Standard): +2 Int, +2 Con, -2 Cha 0 RP
Language Group (Linguist) 1 RP
Size: Small 0 RP
Speed Slow (20ft) -1 RP
Constructed 2 RP
Master Tinker 2 RP
Illusion Resistance (+2) 1 RP
Must Use Custom Armor -1RP?
This brings the total to 11 RP (+4 more from the chosen trait out of the three options you gave. I would personally pick Flight for my last 4 RP) so it fits the 15 RP limit you set.
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