Tamara Hart's page

No worries, you have...8 or more hours based on time zone to get it done today. Some of us are just hungry.

Do not rush difficult decisions. And I agree, both have strengths, but usually a combination approach is best. Some things require a hammer, others a scalpel.

And then there's the crazy doctor with the hammer that does both...

No worries about the deadline. Take the time you need. It's more important that you make the correct decision rather than making it fast. We're just having fun while waiting :).

Still 5 hours left until the 24 hours are up. Though that's only an estimate as we still got another day to go after that before we reach the 13th. Doesn't stop anyone from refreshing in case he updates early though...

My character is finished. I hope you like her. Here's the role-playing sample. I also copied it into the profile:

Feel free to ask any questions you might have an I'll do my best to answer them. If there's anything you want me to change to better fit the game, I'll be happy to do so.

I'm a bit surprised to see so few casting classes among the proposed characters. Even my character got more than most with 6th level casting on both sides and I don't feel like she has a lot of it. I guess people really like martial classes.

Merry Christmas!

Here the whole family has been sick, which unfortunately have limited my time for hobbies. It's just cold though. I hope to return to you soon though...

Tamara muses in between her prayers for guidance. "Thinking back. Wasn't it strange that they chose V for the bloody letter? Wasn't there one person with name starting on v at the memorial?"

"Let me check if there is anything magical here first, better safe than sorry, right? Desna, please reveal the magical auras hidden herein. Is there anything meant to harm, or are they all created to heal?" Once the safe is finally open she scans the contents for magic or anything else dangerous. If nothing is magical and nothing looks dangerous, she takes down the documents to scan over what they contain.

perception: 1d20 + 9 ⇒ (9) + 9 = 18

Your sheet lists only a single rank in disable device, but we are level 2. Perhaps you forgot to allocate ranks for level 2? 2 ranks + 3 class +4 int =+9. Uh, actually it seems like your whole sheet is for level 1?

"Desna, please provide guidance for this man so he may open up this door and get us closer to solving this foul mystery at our hands." Tamara prays.

At Harrold's suggestion, Tamara shakes her head. "I do not think it's a good idea to split up. What if we face another swarm like those rats, without your bombs we would have big problems. Really, any enemies would be more dangerous to face with one less person. I think it's better that we all wait here until it's done."

I was so tired I went to bed 8 PM last night... On a Sunday. Good thing I did, cause my son woke up 2...

And yes, you'll get guidance. I'll make a post where I include it.

My son was sick with chicken pox which was rather tiring as he kept us all up most of the night with his itching. Hoping to get back into things today.

Sorry for holding you up :/.

Tamara walks over to the sorceress and puts an hand on her arm. "Amira, dear, don't be so hard on these people. They just fear what they don't understand. That's not a bad way to see things, because most things you don't understand are worth fearing. Please give them another chance? They don't deserve to die to undeads like last night, or worse, be turned into the like themselves."

She turns towards the father. "Like I said, most things people don't understand are worth fearing. Like the haunts we encountered yesterday. It seems like all the bad things that has happened at the prison have led to a number of these phenomenons occurring. All the negativity from the prisoners, their sentences and later the fire have caused negative energy to manifest strongly enough to harm people. I fear that whatever the professor was investigating there is using these haunts to hide behind. Even though we encountered scary things, I'm more afraid what will happen if we don't get to the bottom of this, given what happened last night and all."

Ready to move to the memorial once things are over with here. Though I kinda want to figure out the haunt siphons as well :/. Could be possible to read about them in one of the professor's books perhaps.

Damn, I didn't get to reply before the sheriff left :(.

Somehow after sleeping Tamara felt fresh, filled with new insight and better than ever despite the trials of yesterday. She decided to check out the objects they couldn't identify from the restlands yesterday. "Desna, please grant me insight to investigate and find out what these things are."

spellcraft: 1d20 + 5 ⇒ (6) + 5 = 11

Currently

"Someone smeared the memorial with blood? What a disgusting and unnecessary thing to do. That serves no purpose that I can see, other than to make the people here upset. If that and what's going on at harrowstone is connected I would like to investigate it further. We should go see the sheriff there after breakfast. What do the rest of you think?" Tamara looks to the others.

There is as far as I know no problem mixing hybrid classes and those they are based off. The classes are really quite different. That's only for alternate classes like ninja or samurai.

For bloodrager + sorcerer there is the limitation that you have to pick the same bloodline for both, it's listed in the description of the bloodrager's bloodline ability. Luckily arcane bloodline is an option for bloodragers as well. The arcane bloodrager bloodline got really good 4th and 8th level powers, but I guess you won't make it that far.

@Amira: Wow, straight up barbarian? It's not easy to cast while raging... I would suggest taking a look at bloodrager. It also has an urban version, but it also let you pick up the feat mad magic in order to cast while raging.

Level up summary:
+7 HP (+5 from d8 +2 con)
+1 Will
+1 BAB
+4 skillpoints (+1 spellcraft, +1 sense motive, +1 perception, +1 knowledge history)
Spells learned: Ill-Omen(Dual Cursed), Purify Food and Drink
Spells per day: +1 1st (now 5/day)
Channel 2d6 DC:16 (FCB to improve channeling)

I find it fun if everyone post a level up summary to see what each other have gained at each level as well as making it easier to check if everything is in order.

I notice that I totally forgot that I have two traits related to channeling, but I don't think either actually came up.

I thought we nailed it already. What do you want her to be human for. For the eldritch heritage you need the skill focus so there is not really something to gain for you as human.

And yes you can do the level up already as nothing is going to happen for you until then. Only thing would be to cheat with additional skill points in a game of trivial pursuit if you find someone to play at the laughing demon.

She is half-elf, hence counting as both human and elf and being able to pick the human FCB in addition to the elf and half-elf FCBs. As I said though, I think I prefer using the elven FCB even at 1/4.

From the FAQ:

Yes. Half-elves and half-orcs may select racial favored class options, archetypes, traits, and so on, as if they were a full member of both races (a half-elf can select elf and human rules elements, a half-orc can select human and orc rules elements).

Edit 9/26/13: This is a reversal of an earlier ruling. This resolves a discrepancy between this FAQ and two Advanced Player's Guide FAQs.

So at least we are all on the same page about the rulings.

Wow, that's a crazy amount of posts in gameplay. At least they are not all that long. Sorry for being busy and sick...

I guess we can level up for the morning even though we aren't technically there yet?

Also, Tamara as a human can pick that FCB, or would you disallow it? Though I much prefer going with the channeling improvement option.

"I'm sorry Herm, but the trials of today has left me rather exhausted. Do you mind if I go back to Kendra to sleep. Hopefully I'll be able to make her feel safer and protect her too." Tamara says to the paladin before he starts with all the digging business.

It's in an FAQ somewhere. Something about only being able to cast spells on your spell list and that this doesn't add it the spells to your spell list (even if all other abilities worded similarly still works). I don't think three spells for one feat is anywhere near too powerful (and you gain access to the other two super late), but I guess opinions differ on that.

Arcane Enlightenment was incredibly awesome back when it actually worked, especially for a pre-errata spirit guide. If it hurts your head, lets just remove it from consideration. In that version, it let you pick your cha mod in spells from the wizard/sorcerer list which you could change around every day.

Arcane bond is pretty awesome. I might pick up that regardless of whether you allow Improved Eldritch Heritage to work. As for IEH, it would grant me one spell when I first pick it up, then another at level 15 and finally one more at level 19 or when I pick greater eldritch heritage, whichever comes first.

Now I'm confused at how you calculate the favored class bonus. I thought you meant that the first increase would happen at level 2, then the next at 8, but from your latest comment it seems like you mean it'll happen at 2 then 6 then 10 etc, right? That means that by level 18 your version will have had 5 increases, compared to the 6 increases of 1/3 or the 9 increases from 1/2.

Tamara will indeed not use a weapon. However starting at level 3 she'll get access to hexes through spirit guide and she'll always have something to do. Even before that all the channeling does give her quite a few uses every day. I don't think not being able to use a weapon well will be a big drawback.

You misunderstand me if you think I want to only deal damage. I want the actions I do be effective, which for channeling means damage or healing.

I don't need, nor want the flame mystery spells. I'll leave fire damage to Harrold and Amira to take care of. Dual Cursed replace the first three anyway. I don't really plan to use my spells for damage much.

The cleric/oracle spell list is not as good as wizard/sorcerer, but it's not all bad. You mention blindness as if it's marginal, but I usually find that it's a very effective condition to impose. For example I plan to pick up burst of radiance at level 4.

There are a couple options for picking up spells that used to work, but have been errataed to not work. Would you allow either of those?:
1) Improved Eldritch Heritage (Arcane) to learn a few sorcerer/wizard spells.
2) Spirit Guide to pick up Lore Spirit and Arcane Enlightenment. Though as written this would require int + wis + cha. Tamara doesn't currently have the int to use this effectively. Not sure how to solve that without changing her stat distribution. If I used the pre-errata version of Spirit Guide I would only need int + cha, making it easier to do, though still requiring a reorganization.

It's not that I need to get +1d6 per 4 levels, but rather that I think it would be more fun while also not being overpowered. As I have to spend my resources both to heal and harm, I'll probably need what help I can get to make a difference offensively.

I think +1/2 level is great, +1/3 level is ok, +1/4 is marginal and +1/6 is wildly unplayable. At +1/4 level as Foxy went with I'll look over some prestige classes to find if there is something else I rather want. I might go evangelist of Desna for example. I guess it's not a huge difference between +1/3 and +1/4, but I would feel a lot better about things if the decision was the former rather than the latter.

I'll still probably pick up some channeling related feats. Most of those do largely affect healing rather than damaging undead though.

Here is the FAQ on choosing elven FCB. I fixed human to half-elf in the title line.

Sorry if my answer earlier was a bit quick. I don't always have as much time to play as I would like.

I haven't looked at the stats of monsters, but usually monster HP scale way faster than 3d6 per 4 levels (with save for half). Channeling tend to fall off quite a bit at higher levels as the monster's get more HD. For example at 8th level 6d6 is only average 21 damage, compare that to Harrold tossing out 3 bombs with fast bombs and rapid shot for example or Amira throwing fireballs and you see that I'm really not going to outshine the rest... Still, it's your decision to make, I just have to live with it.

A half-elf has both the human and elf subtypes. It can also chose both human and elven racial stuff (fc, traits, feats archtypes etc). I don't have time to find the reference for it not, but it has been clarified.

1/4 is also pretty harsh. That's +1d6 every 8 levels, most fcbs are every 6 levels. Guess I'll have to look for something else to focus on then. :(

I must have missed it when you said so earlier, sorry. At least we don't have to decide it now then.

What can I do to convince you? What aspects of it are you worried about?

I've already shown how this combination is weaker than a cleric of sarenrae with the right domains (sun and glory), especially with your restrictions on ability scores. A cleric would do 11 average damage per 4 levels(2d6+4) while an oracle would only do 10.5(3d6), also a cleric get two more channels per day.

I've also compared it to fireball, besides being more restrictive on targeting (only damaging undead and centered on self), 3d6 every 4 levels is only 75% of 1d6 every level.

If you allow the full version that would grant +1d6 per 4 levels. That's about worth a feat. The best comparison there is the half-elf favored class bonus for summoner, which grants an extra evolution point every 4 levels which is also worth a feat.

It's not like I only get to use it for cool things like destroying undead though. I also have to keep the party alive ;).

I just remembered, but I would have used the misfortune on the attack roll of the scorching ray against Herm if I had the option. In the future, if you are unsure if I would use it against an enemy, please rather err on the side of using it instead of not. I believe I did say I wanted to always use it against attacks from single enemies though. What made you decide not to use it?

A level up already? That feels sorta quick. But I guess we did run into a lot of haunts and all the battles were rather quick.

Have you decided how you want to do the oracle FC yet? I really don't think the original 1/2 level is too powerful (still way behind a sun+glory cleric for damage for example). It'll affect things from this level.

"You guys take them out so fast. No need for me to even use my magic. That's good, because I'm almost out of it. Now let's get back to father Grimburrow. Hopefully we'll manage to stave of any further incidents. I'm so glad the shriek we heard was only from a pig and not from a human..." Tamara is relieve and happy to return to the father.

Somewhere along the way Tamara have relit Herm's glove "Desna will light up your glove so you can see, in case you need to use both hands."

When they hear the shriek Tamara reacts quickly. "The shed!" She shouts and rushes forward alongside Herm.

"We probably dealt with the majority that went there. So we should follow the lone track to the temple." She says and does so.

Did Harrold run ahead of us?

Here is the rules I referred in the glossary:

Characters with low-light vision have eyes that are so sensitive to light that they can see twice as far as normal in dim light. Low-light vision is color vision. A spellcaster with low-light vision can read a scroll as long as even the tiniest candle flame is next to him as a source of light.

Characters with low-light vision can see outdoors on a moonlit night as well as they can during the day.

So it does what you say, but it also let you see well in moonlight.

"Yeah, we should locate the last skeleton first. Sorry for rushing here. We'll come back once we are done. We should spread out to search more effectively." Tamara will provide light for Herm or Harrold as they move back. Probably for Harrold, seeing as Herm already took out his sunrod. She doesn't need light herself due to her sharp elven eyes.

I seem to remember low light vision treating moonlight as daylight, but I can't find the exact reference now.

Tamara notices the tracks and calls out to the others. "The tracks are leading here. We don't need to split up after all."

survival: 1d20 + 2 ⇒ (14) + 2 = 16

It's not in the book at all.

"It seems the dead are walking among the living. We've stopped three skeletons and a zombie so far, but I'm not sure if there are more. Gather your men to defend the town. We'll go with Father Grimburrow to the Restlands and stop them at their source." Tamara says to the sheriff before she rushes after the others.

---

Tamara comes after the other, her armor weighing her down. "I told the sheriff about what happened. Hopefully he'll be able to handle things until we return. As Herm said, we found three more skeletons that we eliminated."

Do you really underestimates the eagles? They are the most powerful entities in the most iconic fantasy literature out there. If they can tear apart Nazguls, why not zombies?

All bombs splash by default. I agree with Harrold that I find it quite weird/jarring that not both skeletons are hit by the bomb.

"Your hammer would be quite an effective weapon against a skeleton as well Herm. Slashing weapons just glance of their bones while spears and arrows just go through them. Smashing them still works just fine though. Of course the are also harmed by positive energy as you just saw. I feel that I don't have much divine energy to draw on for the day. Maybe I should let you handle any other skeletons we meed. I couldn't hold myself back from taking it out when I had the chance though." Tamara comments after the skeleton has crumbled at her feet. She's a bit shocked herself at how effective the attack was.

She looks around at the others. "I guess we should continue to the Restlands. Though I'm also worried about the rest of the inhabitants of the town. I would feel bad if someone gets taken by these undead while we head there." She's unsure about what direction to take.

Are with Father Grimburrow now?

I'm down to one spell and one channel left, is that correct? An extra channel and spell from more cha would have made things easier. I guess I just have to hang back and let the guys do most of the hard work. It's unclear how much fighting remains of the day.

"Yeah Amira, this situation seems all wrong to me too. How can the professor raise from the dead? Somebody is definitely up to something awful. Anyway, let's go with the father back to the Restlands. I hope you are safe Kendra. I'm sorry we haven't been of more help yet. We'll get to the bottom of this." She walks over to hug the other woman before quickly hurrying after the others.

---

knowledge religion: 1d20 + 7 ⇒ (6) + 7 = 13

"Another undead, this time a skeleton!" She'll also reveal any results form the knowledge to the others. "Desna help me, let the same touch that I use to heal send this unholy creature back to it's grave." She chants as she walks up the skeleton and grabs one of it's bony limbs, sending cascades of holy energy running up along it.

Touch attack CLW: 1d20 ⇒ 18 damage DC 15 vs will for half: 1d8 + 1 ⇒ (6) + 1 = 7

Who did the Zombie smash earlier?
Tamara's face grows ashen when Kendra reveals the identity of the zombie. "This is horrible. How can he come back to haunt us as undead? Who did this? I'm not sure I'm comfortable putting him back in the Restlands if this is what happens with people who go there. But I don't really see any other option either. After what happened last time with Father Grimburrow, I don't really want to talk to him again, but I guess we have to."

I just got sick, so it might be difficult to keep up. But I'll try. Just thought I would let you know.

"It's an undead! A zombie! Hit it with slashing weapons to cut it to pieces! Desna, Save us from this unholy meneace please!" Tamara prays and holds her cross aloft towards the zombie.

Channel energy: 1d6 ⇒ 2

Knowledge Religion: 1d20 + 7 ⇒ (14) + 7 = 21

Is that a normal man? Tamara wonders as she studies the man as he approaches Herm's glowing glove.

I believe we are still outside

"You are still a bit wounded, and I am too. Desna, please hear my prayer and heal our wounds." She holds her butterfly aloft as she prays. "Ok, let's come back tomorrow then. It'll be more pleasant to investigate in daylight."

channel: 1d6 ⇒ 5

---

Tamara follows after Herm, ready with her shield in case of trouble.

If he's staggered I don't want to go back in.

"Herm, no! Come here and get out of the fire line. I'll heal you." It tears Tamara up inside to see him burnt so badly, but since he's still standing she would rather not risk the horrible flames herself.

Ready an action to heal Herm once he gets out.: 1d8 + 1 ⇒ (7) + 1 = 8

Wasn't Herm at full? He should merely be at 0 and can then run away? Or am I missing something?

Tamara turns when she sees her companion go down in flames. "Herm, no! Desna, please grant me the power to bring this man back to life! He deserves so much more." She touches the fallen man and a soft white light spreads out to cover up some of the burns.
1d8 + 1 ⇒ (5) + 1 = 6

No idea what it does or anything though, right?

"Another haunt! Let's get out of here before it harms us. Not worth fighting if we are going to leave anyway." Tamara says as she retreats towards the previous room. "It's susceptible to cold though."

Knowledge Religion: 1d20 + 7 ⇒ (9) + 7 = 16
What is that thing? Could it be another haunt?

"Well, I think we can do a couple more rooms. It's after sundown, but it's still not that late. But I guess dinner would indeed be nice. Let's check out this room carefully. Desna please guide our eyes to find something interesting before we leave." She joins Herm on the search through this outdoor area.

perception: 1d20 + 9 ⇒ (16) + 9 = 25

We can beg him to stay though, as Tamara did...