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Welcome Andostre, glad to have you aboard (though that's a less relevant pun these days). If we've got an oracle and a mesmerist coming then maybe I'll build my fighter to give us some front line muscle. I'll brew him up over the next couple of days.
Super excited! The traits got updated for the anniversary edition on this blog post. Elephant in the Room looks really good, and both characters below would be able to take advantage of it. I brewed a couple of characters over the weekend that I need to finalise and create more background for. The first is a young man whose cousin was taken by Gaedren Lamm as one of his little minions, and who, in his despair, turned to the worship of Calistria as a focus for his anger and his desire for vengeance. He'll be a Calistrian hunter fighter focusing on hunting people down and then punishing them with his whip. He's not exactly good, but I see him as a Ghost Rider-like figure, punishing those who deserve it but helping those in need. The second is a half-elf forced to withdraw from his studies at the Academae before they'd even begun by a false accusation of murder. Though eventually acquitted his place was revoked and he now works alone to develop his magical and physical prowess while trying to find the man that framed him. He'll be a warlock vigilante, using his social identity as a librarian to gather information and his vigilante identity to bring down the man who cost him his future.
There presumably are a few isolated pockets of non-bandit civilisation though, maybe logging camps or other very rural outposts. Oleg must be selling his stuff to someone!
I'd like to throw a hat into the ring for the arcane slot. I was pointed in this game's direction by Autumn Moon's player, who I'm play alongside in a Jade Regent game. My current plan is a halfling stormborn sorcerer, a small chap who size belies the power of the storm that he channels through his magic. I'm working on the mechanics at the moment, and I've got some ideas for background going on, but I wanted to clarify something with the GM if I could? How do you see new PCs being introduced at this point of the AP? Are we new expedition members sent on from Brevoy or are we Stolen Lands natives that join up with the existing expedition for some reason?
Sadly, the relevant bit of the rules in this situation is in the Tactical Rules section of the CRB.
Shooting at a spellcaster is clearly not a purely defensive readied action, therefore the readied action triggers after the spellcasting action has been completed.
This is something I've taken and run with for my first Starfinder character. Brutaris is a sport that's been mentioned a couple of times in print, and this is essentially how I see it. One of the characters I'm pondering playing in Dead Suns is a recently retired star of my version of brutaris - an American football/basketball hybrid (a bit like Mantic Games' Dreadball) played in an ever changing hazardous three-dimensional court (like the Danger Room from X-Men). It's a sport played by agile and well armoured people of all races who manoeuvre around the three-dimensional and constantly reconfiguring court, dodging the laser pulses and the explosive panels, while trying to pass the very dense ball/weapon between themselves to score points through hoops at either end of the court. Imagine handball meets basketball meets arena football while the court and the opposition are trying to paste you.
@Michael & golfdeltafoxtrot - This may be too little, too late, but even if the subtier you wish to play is full, sign up on the Waitlist section of the spreadsheet. If there's enough interest for adding more tables I'm sure the folks in charge will make it so :) Turns out I was making a fuss about nothing. I've got a 2nd level PC in a session 1 game who will be level 3 if he survives that, which means I can enter him in a vacant tier 3-3 space for session 2 of the Special. Problem solved, but I appreciate the input from the Powers That Be to help out.
@Michael & golfdeltafoxtrot - This may be too little, too late, but even if the subtier you wish to play is full, sign up on the Waitlist section of the spreadsheet. If there's enough interest for adding more tables I'm sure the folks in charge will make it so :) Thanks GM Ladile. I've decided to give SFS a go, been waiting to try it out. Managed to get a spot in a The Commencement, so I'm happy.
That is disappointing. I'd assumed that signup for the special would be announced here as a central point of contact. No spaces for my (only available) subtier now. Guess I'll see if there are any spaces left for a SFS game for my third slot then.
Sounds pretty good to me. There's so much variation in vigilantes that it's probably one of the better classes to run a single-class game with.
I should probably introduce myself as well. GM Red Box also invited me in from an Iron Gods game we're both playing. I've read through all the gameplay and discussion so far, looks like you've got a good bunch of characters with some nice roleplaying so far. I'll be playing a Shoanti totem-bound hunter, alongside his faithful wolf companion. Looking forward to encountering you all.
I've just finished running Mummy's Mask and one of my players played a very effective cleric of Horus. Had the Sun and Nobility domains, was great against undead, served as an excellent party face, and provided pretty much all the healing/condition removal you could ever want.
You, sir, have won the internet for today.
Looking forward to playing alongside you Skalla. I’m currently playing a skald in Skull & Shackles, they’re a lot of fun. I’m posting from GMT, so I suspect our posting times won’t be too far out.
Hi there team. I’m going to be playing Caeleron, elven slayer. I’ll get him built and an alias created ASAP, probably the first half of this week. Looking forward to kicking some hobgoblin butt.
Argh! Sad, but looks like you’ve got a fun group. I’d appreciate being considered as a reserve in case there are any drop-outs though.
I realise I forgot to add an idea of how Caeleron would appear. My inspiration for this character, which has been simmering in my head for some time now, comes from this piece of art by Wayne Reynolds (though Caeleron is male). It's originally from a Magic card (from the brief period I played Magic), but I think it really captures Caeleron as someone who is comfortable in the forest and alert for danger.
Motteditor - I know you've stipulated core races only, but are you OK with using alternate racial traits for the core races? Caeleron doesn't have much use for the Elven Magic or Weapon Familiarity traits, so I was hoping to trade them out for Woodcraft (APG) and Dimdweller (Blood of Shadows) respectively. Would that be OK?
Ironfang is one of the APs I'm most excited about playing, and I'd like to throw my hat into the ring if I may. My submitted character is Caeleron Aithlin. He’s not yet fully statted out, but he will be a neutral elf slayer. I’ve bolded the rules elements I’ve decided on at this point, but a lot of decisions are still to be made. Background (spoilered for length):
Caeleron made his living as a hunter and scout, catching animals for meat and furs, gathering wild plants and fruits, and driving away any disruptive influences from the village of Nithvel, an ancient enclave of elves nestled deep within the Fangwood where he lived with his wife, Alea, and his young daughter, Rhaetia. The closest he ever got to combat was scaring away unscrupulous loggers or killing a dire wolf that once threatened the elves he worked to protect.
Life was quiet for Caeleron and his family nestled within their small village. Quiet, that is, until the Ironfang Legion arrived. A raiding party of hobgoblins came upon Nithvel in the night. With no warning or expectation of attack, there was little the small village could do to hold them back. The hobgoblins put the village to the torch, and killed or captured many of the inhabitants. Caeleron and some of the other hunters tried to defend the village, but they were quickly overrun and chased off into the forest. Wounded by the crude arrow of an Ironfang archer Caeleron collapsed into unconsciousness. He woke many hours later and by the time he had bound his wound and made his way slowly back to the village, all that was left was a smoking ruin and a pyre of elven corpses. He killed the two hobgoblins that he found left behind to burn the corpses, and looked for his family. He searched for two days and two nights without rest, combing through the ruins of the village and looking for tracks that might lead him to escaped villagers, but found nothing. Forced to admit that his wife and child were gone, but unable to determine whether they were dead, captured or fled, Caeleron set about finding some answers. His search led him to Phaendar, where he has been living for only a few days. Camped on the edge of town, he has been asking about for his family, showing pictures of his wife and daughter to anyone he can talk to. As his desperation has grown, so too has his anger: anger at himself for failing to protect his village and family, and anger at the Ironfang Legion for taking everything away from him. On the dark nights since the attack, Caeleron has prayed to Calistria, the elven goddess of vengeance, to help him seek retribution for those that have destroyed his life. Why is he in Phaendar? – Caeleron is in Phaendar because he has run there following the attack on his village, and is looking for two things – his family, and vengeance. He will take the campaign trait Ironfang Survivor. Character development – Character development is something that I like to work on in play, and will be easier to solidify if I’m lucky enough to get selected and I know who Caeleron will be fighting alongside. Initially, his combat focus will likely be melee, though I’m more than happy to make him an archer if needed within the group dynamic. Out of combat, he’s going to be a tracker, hunter, and scout, and will hopefully grow into an advisor or mentor for those that might not have much in the way of wilderness skills. From a roleplaying perspective, right now his main motivation is vengeance, but he will never give up looking for his family, and will likely become more altruistic as the adventure goes on and the danger to innocents increases. About me – I’m in GMT, and I try to post once or twice every day (easier in the week at work, harder at home with a two-year old to corral!) This would be my 10th PbP game (3 PFS scenarios, three non-PF games of varying length, one Rise of the Runelords that never got going, and I’m currently in two other Adventure Paths – Skull & Shackles and Iron Gods). I’ve been playing Pathfinder in real life since 2010, and I’m currently GMing my second Adventure Path (Mummy’s Mask, having previously GM’d Kingmaker). I love PbP, because I’m too shy to roleplay well face-to-face, but I feel like I want to tell a better story with my characters than I’m able in real life. A few examples of posts that I’m proud of are below:
I hope you like my submission, please feel free to ask any questions you might have, or to read my other PbPs to get a flavour of how I play.
Also, Hornblower was made by ITV, another British TV channel (via one of it's regional subsidiaries), not the Beeb. For those who haven't seen it, it's one of the greatest Napoleonic war naval dramas of all time. As one of my medical school friends described it, it's "Sharpe On A Boat".
My android exocortex mechanic will have his custom rig as an eye augmentation. It provides an AR overlay to hack computers, uses a HUD-like display to show combat-relevant data for combat tracking, and provides high-quality sensor data as part of the visual data processor line of hacks. Also, the eye slot augmentations don't add much beyond the darkvision and low-light vision that androids already get. The ability to see IR and UV is nice, but not vital I don't think, so if it turns out the slot can't be used for normal augmentations as well then I don't think I've really missed out.
Thanks for all the advice everyone. I think I'm going to keep Wisdom where it is for now, as it boosts some of my important skills and it fits my character concept. I'm not going to put a lot of investment in it for the future, as that'll obviously be for Int and Dex. Transfer Charge seems like a good choice for a cantrip, as does buying a backpack to shore up my none-too-impressive bulk limit. I get the feeling that I'll never have enough spells to make spells+pistol a viable combat strategy - it seems like Longarm Proficiency and Versatile Specialisation are practically mandatory to keep up with damage output, which is somewhat depressing.
Thanks DMW and Castilliano. I think was trying to make a mystic too much like a technomancer, mainly because I'm kind of underwhelmed by the technomancer, but I've had a go at a quick rebuild. Does he look better as a technomancer? With regards my adventuring colleagues, the likelihood is a combat drone mechanic and some flavour of solarion, but it's not fixed for any of us yet. Calaeron, N elf scholar technomancer Theme: Scholar (Physical Science - astronomy) Str 10
SP 4, HP 9
BAB +0
EAC 13
Feat:
Skills:
Spells:
Languages:
Gear:
As an aside, if I choose for my spell cache to be a computer, do I get a tier I computer for free (like a PF wizard gets a free spellbook)?
O wise ones, please tell me if my mystic is rubbish. He's an elven researcher/scholar, with a bent for snooping into databases he doesn't have access to, and a disregard for social niceties. He's found that, since the Gap, he's been able to learn things more easily than he really should, and that he can impose his thoughts on the physical world. I see his role as the knowledge guy, a back-up hacker, utility spells and low-grade ranged attacks in combat, and possibly as the science officer in space combat. He just feels a bit lacklustre, though the other characters I've built recently are a blitz soldier and an exocortex mechanic which might explain it. Any tips/advice/ridicule are welcome. Calaeron, N elf scholar mystic Theme: Scholar (Life Science - xenobiology)
Str 10
SP 5, HP 10
BAB +0
EAC 13
Feat:
Skills:
Spells:
Languages:
Gear:
Now that it's been mentioned twice in official SF products (CRB and Incident on Absalom Station), how do people see brutaris, or any of the other sports played in the Pact Worlds? One of the characters I'm pondering playing in Dead Suns is a recently retired star of my version of brutaris - an American football/basketball hybrid (a bit like Mantic Games' Dreadball) played in an ever changing hazardous three-dimensional court (like the Danger Room from X-Men). He'll be a human icon soldier (blitz) who focuses on maintaining his agility in heavy armour so that he can manoeuvre effectively round the battlefield to punch people with his pulse gauntlet. Not sure how effective it is as a character, but I'm excited about the background for him and that's probably enough to get me to play him. Has anyone else given thought to the sports of the Pact Worlds, or is it just me?
I'd like to see the athlete theme - my current planned character for when we start Dead Suns is a professional athlete who happens to be caught up in the beginning of the AP at the end of his season and just goes with it for fun. He's currently going to be an icon, which is OK in this circumstance.
When I read the Adventure Path my brain is just having difficulty parsing the information because I want it to be as detailed as I can come up with, but also simple enough to just read and note down a page or two. I think this is the crux of the issue - in pre-written adventures, in general you can have detailed, or easy to run. Very rarely can you have both, and Adventure Paths are not one of those rare examples. Essentially you have to pick whichever is more important to you and your players - a high-prep time very detailed home-brew environment, or a low-prep time pre-written Adventure Path that might have some gaps that you can either fill in or leave by the wayside. For what it's worth, my group uses option two. We like the ability to open an AP volume, read it a couple of times, then run it. Yes there are gaps sometimes, but we're experienced enough that we either ignore them or paper over them with another encounter or a bit of roleplay or some character development that makes them feel less jarring.
Is this going to be available at the Paizo booth at UK Games Expo this weekend?
Sounds like an interesting premise. I'll have a ponder but I'm currently torn between an Ecclesitheurge of Pharasma, a neutral follower of her aspect as the last remaining source of prophesy, or a vanilla cleric of Alseta heading into the Evangelist PrC, to take on some of the rogue-like role of trap and secret door stuff as well as some cool teleportation stuff.
How many drafts of an iconic does it normally take you to finalise a concept or come up with a final depiction? Your designs seem incredibly detailed to my untrained eye, and I wondered whether you layered your designs as you progressed - say starting with a basic body then adding clothes then accessories - or does it come together in some other way? As an aside, will you be at UK Games Expo this year? I regretted not buying a print of my favourite iconic, Quinn, two years ago and had resolved to buy one last year but it seems you weren't attending. Might I have the chance this year?
Update: My order has been found by the owner of our old house - he'd put it in a pile of paperwork and forgotten about it. No need for a replacement now, but thanks for sorting things out so quickly.
Thanks Diego, great service from the customer service team as always!
The above order seems to have disappeared into the ether. My subsequent subscription order has arrived, and I thought the previous one might have been slowed down in the Thanksgiving/Christmas post chaos but it still hasn't appeared. We recently moved house, but it's not at our previous address or at the post office, and the mail redirect we put in place hasn't delivered it either. I fear it's been lost in transit somewhere, and I wondered how I might go about acquiring a replacement for my subscription items.
Am I the only person that found that blog post a bit off-putting? I got that, and I understand that it was an attempt at a slightly more interesting way of presenting what seems to be very little actual information. I just would have liked it if there was half a blog post of in-character teasers and the other half be something a little more concrete. It didn't really grab my imagination so much as annoy me that I had to listen to this guy prattle on while trying to pick out tidbits of what was actually in the book. Just my personal preference, however.
Am I the only person that found that blog post a bit off-putting? It contains about 4 lines of actual info about the book and the rest comes across as slightly irritating. Don't get me wrong, I love Crystal Frasier's work, but I'd rather see an actual preview rather than some in-character waffle and three or four vague hints.
Thanks for the compliment dude, glad you like him. He's an idea that I've been mulling over for a while. I like to have a character idea for each AP, and Dragon Skald has always been an archetype I've wanted to try.
Skald mostly done (it's been slow at work this morning!) How are you doing starting cash?
I've had this idea in my head for a long time of playing a Dragon Skald in S&S - an Ulfen raider who was part of a longboat crew that raided their way down Avistan and Garund, ending up in the pirate nation of The Shackles. My only reservation is about fitting it into a party that might not be too keen on accepting my raging song, so it'd depend on how the rest of the party would feel about that. Failing that, I'd like to make an Undine Adept druid with the Flesh Chameleon alternate racial ability, so that he appears human at first glance until his true elemental nature reveals itself. I'm good to post on a daily basis, although I'm in the GMT time zone so it may not sync very well if most people are elsewhere. Hopefully that's not a problem.
I like the idea of an extradimensional library, and that monsters/evil NPCs could be released from books and need to be returned. I wish I was half as creative as you guys!
I can't say I'm super-excited about this, not really into science-fantasy, but I'll reserve full judgment for now. My concern is that this will cause issues for the core Pathfinder stuff. I hope that development of Starfinder doesn't cut into business as usual for Pathfinder.
Oh yeah, I totally forgot about Buffy-based library stuff. Which is sad, because it's my all-time favourite TV show. Maybe I could create a Watchers Council-esque organisation as the PCs' employer, or use it as a basis for an evil parallel organisation.
Thanks for even more great suggestions everyone. I've finally got far enough through UI to read the research rules, which it turns out are essentially the same as those I used when running Mummy's Mask. Ascalaphus makes a good point which I had sort of had a thought or two about but never in such a developed way. The research rules themselves are clear that eventually even idiots can grind their way to all the info, so there has to be some sort of penalty or pressure to make it interesting. I initially came up with things like releasing evil spirits or demons if you read the wrong book, or attracting the attention of malign 'guardians' if you spend too long in the library, but external pressures (i.e. the reason you're doing all this research) also make a lot of internal sense. I like the covert scholarly society thing, maybe a bit like the Esoteric Order of the Palatine Eye. On the way to work I thought that I could construct the team as 'black ops librarians', deniable operatives for the Pathfinders or some other organisation tasked with retrieval of very important information that their bosses can't let fall into other peoples' hands. For those enquiring about a PbP, I'm afraid I have my hands full playing in two PbPs, playing a weekly face-to-face game, looking after my 9 month old daughter and being a doctor. Sorry to disappoint!
Even more great suggestions, thanks everyone! Sadly Mummy's Mask is already out - we were playing that until I had to put it on hiatus when my baby arrived and I had a huge exam to do. I can certainly look at Carrion Crown, and at the modules mentioned. I like the idea of non-book written materials, like copying frescoes or carvings. I remember there being a bit in Souls for Smuggler's Shiv with some interesting carvings, maybe I'll have a look at that for inspiration/adaptation.
Great suggestions Meraki, thanks. Sadly Shattered Star is the AP that my regular group is playing irregularly, and most of them played CoT before I joined the group. Academy of Secrets is a module that's always intrigued me. I'll check it out.
Thanks for the suggestions everyone. I'm having a scout through the adventure finder database, but it's less of an adventure finder and more of a list of adventures by level so it's not as helpful as I'd hoped. The macguffin thing is a good idea. Any thoughts on good "go there, get that" adventures I can tweak? I'd love to write my own stuff but with work and a 9 month old baby (and a fear of accidentally writing utter rubbish) I'd rather stick with pre-written stuff for now, though I'm happy to tweak things if need be.
I haven't got that far through UI yet, but I've used the previous iteration of the rules while running Mummy's Mask so I'm keen to use them. I'll check out Library of the Lion, thanks (pun not at all intended).
My regular group is meeting less regularly than previously due to various life issues, but there's usually 3 or 4 of us available on any given week. I'd like to use the intermittent sessions as an opportunity to try out an episodic campaign using some systems from Unchained (such as background skills, automatic bonus progression, VMC, and fractional advancement), and maybe some of the newer classes that our group might not ordinarily commit to in a longer campaign (we usually play Adventure Paths). My idea, which I suspect might sound a bit dull to some but in my head sounds cool, is to have the PCs as a newly formed team of Pathfinders tasked with the retrieval of specific books, documents and manuscripts of interest to the Society. Drawing inspiration from The Librarians and Warehouse 13, they would be sent to track down dangerous, magical or just plain valuable texts from libraries, tombs, private collections or various other locations. I'm here to ask if anyone knows of any pre-written adventures which cover these sort of themes to get me started or provide inspiration. I'm happy with pretty much anything - PFS scenarios, Adventure Path segments, modules, 3rd party adventures - so long as they're thematic and of good quality. Anyone have any suggestions, either for good adventures or anything else I could incorporate into an episodic campaign of this nature?
I agree. On reflection, the stats aren't great. They can easily be shuffled around seeing as it's a PFS character with 1XP. 12/15+2/14/14/11/10 looks good. I accept that Dex-based is a slightly slower route to combat effectiveness, but I don't really see the character as a high-strength type. I think I'll stick with the Dex plan.
I think the point was more that, combat maneuvers aren't something to take lightly and as a second-tier, after-thought to your character. Sure, a build made around maneuvers can do well, but this character is a skill monkey first, and the OP is just looking for some suggestions for non-resource-heavy ways to shore up combat a little bit. So it's probably a good idea to nudge them away from investing feats into a maneuver track that they will eventually fall behind in. That's essentially it. I recently played a paladin/lore warden with a ridiculous CMB for tripping, but that's a character built for maneuvers with loads of feats to spare. My investigator isn't built for maneuvers and isn't flush with feats, so maybe combat maneuvers aren't the right way forward. It feels like slashing at stuff with a sickle is going to be more effective in the long run.
Thanks Ascalaphus. A lot of stuff I've heard about investigator combat ability is based around the swashbuckler dip and then when studied combat comes on line later. How do Dex-based investigators compare in the early levels without those things? Good points about the stats. I'm a terrible sucker for spreading my stat points about, so maybe I'll move things around to shore up my Con. Combat maneuvers sometimes suck, so maybe I'll stick with slashing stuff with my sickle. If so, that would mean trading Imp. Init. for WF (sickle), then Slashing Grace at 3rd? Quick Study is definitely high on my list of must-have talents.
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