Thjodrorir "Thod" Six-Picks's page

Well, to be technical, I've already made him, but looking at the nightmarish Frankenstein result is making me reconsider.

So, what I had was two levels of Rogue (Thug), four levels of Barbarian, and one level of Fighter.

My main goal was manoeuvrability. Specifically, along with the intimidation tactics of the Thug, I took the Rogue Crawl rogue talent. Fit the character that he could move around on all fours surprisingly nimbly. Similarly, the fighter level was because I wanted to work my way up to Armour Training 1 to not be impeded by medium armour.

Partly, this was also an experiment in multiclassing. Though I'm not sure I like the end result. Hence why I'm here.

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Anyways, so I'm looking for suggestions for how to make a front-line character with a few skill points to spend and a bestial/wild theme. Seven levels. Any first party material from the SRD should be acceptable. Would really like Rogue Crawl or a related ability. Some preference for being able to move freely in medium armour as well, though this isn't as important.

Forget about gear, focus entirely on the character. Don't want to get into details, but magical equipment tends to be hard to come by with my GM.

As the topic title says: Among these three classes, widely regarded as some of the weakest PC options, (I hope not to have this topic devolve into yet another argument into the Martial/Caster disparity, but I also hope that a magical unicorn will carry me to the Peppermint Forest.) which archetypes are considered worthwhile for them?

Leastwise, I vaguely recall seeing people occasionally mention that certain archetypes are solid choices for the above classes. The only ones I can remember are Zen Archer for the monk, and Thug for the Rogue.

I'm aware that archetypes aren't going to turn them into gods, but it's good to know the worthwhile options.

In this game, one person posts something a paladin did, and then the next poster explains why he fell, and then offers his own paladin action.

Two ways you can go about it. You can offer an innocent or even charitable action, and the next person makes or finds the absurd 'evil' action:

A: The paladin bought a beggar clean clothes and a warm meal.
B: The paladin fell because the beggar was neutral, meaning he associated with non-good forces.
Or...
B: The paladin fell because he didn't say 'excuse me' when addressing the beggar initially.

Or, in the event of a clearly evil action, find the minor, inconsequential thing he did.

A: The paladin broke into the goblin warrens, slaughtering every man, woman, and child there.
B: The paladin fell because he didn't wipe his feet on the doormat before heading inside.

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So, let's get started. Post the reason the paladin fell, and then post your own paladin action:

The paladin woke up in his temple quarters and had a healthy breakfast.

Saving Throws: Nonmagical, unattended items never make saving throws. They are considered to have failed their saving throws, so they are always fully affected by spells and other attacks that allow saving throws to resist or negate. An item attended by a character (being grasped, touched, or worn) makes saving throws as the character (that is, using the character's saving throw bonus).

Magic items always get saving throws. A magic item's Fortitude, Reflex, and Will save bonuses are equal to 2 + half its caster level. An attended magic item either makes saving throws as its owner or uses its own saving throw bonus, whichever is better.

Destructive Harmonics: (Su) A destrachan can project a blast of sonic energy in a cone up to 80 feet long or in a 30-foot-radius burst centered on itself as a standard action. It can adjust the harmonics of its sonic cry to generate one of two different effects on targets within the area of effect, but can only create one of these effects with each use of this ability. The save DCs are Constitution-based.

Destruction: All creatures within the area of effect of the destructive harmonics take 8d6 points of sonic damage—a DC 19 Reflex save halves this damage. If the destrachan wishes, this damage can instead deal nonlethal damage rather than sonic damage. Alternatively, the destrachan can target a single crystal, metal, stone, or wooden object within 80 feet with this attack—that object takes 8d6 points of damage. This damage is not halved when applied to the object's hit points, but is reduced by the object's hardness. A magical or attended object can attempt a DC 19 Reflex save to halve the damage.

Recently our group encountered a destrachan. After a character attacked it, the destrachan attempted a destructive blast on his rapier. Because it gives a reflex saving throw for half damage, the PC believed that since his character has evasion, he would ignore the damage entirely if he made his save.

While specifically we wondered about that scenario, it could be generally asked as "When you make a saving throw for an attended item, are you making the saving throw or is it the item that does so? (It just substitutes your saving throw bonus)"

Our GM ruled that Evasion would not apply. I mostly agree, considering wording, but I wanted to get some other opinions here.

I noticed in the "Horrible character backgrounds" thread that there was a tangent involving character backgrounds. Thought I'd make a new topic to discuss such.

So, in general, what's your habits involving your character backstories? How much, and why, if you can go into such detail? I recall one person in the above topic commented that when people complained about those with 8-page backgrounds, his first thought was "Yeah, that's a little sparse."

Honestly, I don't think I've ever actually written out a background, beyond perhaps some e-mail correspondence with my GM to hammer the fine points. Not to say I don't have backgrounds, I just usually keep them in my head, only telling my GM once or twice.

To be honest, I have a bit of an aversion to longer backstories, especially any that provide some specific motivation. I have a motivation for why my character is adventuring, but I don't like to go beyond that. And I do admit this makes me sound like I turn my characters into murderhobos.

The reason for my aversion is kind of silly, when I think about it, but it still sticks in my mind. Years ago, when I was just getting into tabletop RPing, at least seriously, I remember one of my fellow gamers telling me how they learned not to involve character backstories too much into their campaigns. They had a situation with a campaign where character backstory was involved. He said that it reached a point where no PC could die, because doing so would grind the campaign to a halt since the campaign was so personally involved. I wasn't told the specifics, and this was years ago, so I'm probably misremembering things.

I also have this feeling that if my character has some sort of long-term goal, that I'd be taking power away from the GM. At any time, my character could up and leave the campaign, because he has backstory he needs to fulfill.

And so, because of the above, my backstories do detail how my character knows what he knows, but his motivations as to why he's adventuring are either vague, mercenary, or somehow can be solved by running around killing things for money.

I tend to like filling in parts of the backstory as the campaign goes on, starting with a general idea, and giving bits and pieces later. One instance is a mercenary fighter character I'm playing in one game. He had a backstory of formerly being part of a mercenary company that was almost completely wiped out, so now he works freelance. I decided that large professional scary guy was kind of bland, so I gave him the added personality quirk how everything relates to an old war story, and he often refers to them. "This reminds me of the time we had to sneak up on an orcish encampment through their latrine ditch." Another reason I don't write out backstory. So I can keep it fluid if I decide to change something later. (Nothing serious, though, and nothing that would invalidate or force a retcon on previous actions.)

So how's about you? What do you do for backstory? And why?

Spinning off from Odraude's topic, in which he asked for reasons to keep Gods from interfering in events in the Material Plane (Or the equivalent in your campaign setting.) I have a different problem.

Demons, Devils, and many lower plane creatures make excellent villains. Being literally born of evil, they can be killed freely without much consequence. They can be summoned by the Big Bad, or a high-ranking Balor/Pit Fiend, if not a Devil/Demon Prince, could be the mastermind behind the campaign.

(For the sake of this post, Devils and Demons will be used interchangeably, despite the difference between the two. Similar to referring to Heaven as a unified whole, ignoring the standard campaign setting's multiple upper planes.)

However, this leads me to wonder. There's usually a Heaven or equivalent full of angelic beings, if not multiple realms with Archons, Azatas, Angels, and whatever the other 'A' group is. (Intentional case to keep all the Good Outsiders in the beginning of the book, I guess...) Beings whose very purpose would be to fight evil.

This makes me wonder how to run adventures which feature demonic incursions. Small-scale ones I can see being overlooked. Heaven is busy, they don't have to respond to every time a Dretch is summoned into the material plane. But when a full-on Demon Prince is manipulating events, or a deposed prince plots to collude with a Devil Prince to reestablish his rule through bringing in devils to bolster his armies, it seems a little odd that Heaven wouldn't send in a response.

On the one hand, you want the heroes to be the ones to stop the evil demonic plot without thinking that Angels will just come down and solve the problem for them. But at the same time, you don't want Heaven to seem weak and ineffectual, (Or worse, nearly nonexistent as a force.) and only sending down a single Trumpet Archon (or similar) to guide the heroes to the next piece of the MacGuffin seems a little underwhelming without a reason.

What thoughts do you have on this situation? Doesn't have to be Golarian, feel free to redesign Heaven and Hell to make an answer.