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Bedlam alerted me to your presence! Good to see you again. As an aficionado of teens-thirties pulp fiction, option one would be terribly tempting. Character concept: an author of pulp (non)-fiction, looking for whoever/whatever disappeared Ambrose Bierce and George Allan England. Or a psychic detective in the vein of Carnacki, John Silence, or even Solomon Kane.
Oh hey! I see I've been introduced but I have yet to post. I'm the new player Wicked mentioned. I'll have a character statted up and ready for Wicked's inspection soon, and once that char gets the OK I'll be here in persona. @Ramndr sounds like we have a lot of the same problems, I finished my PhD in English last summer and it's a constant (rip?)tide of all those things (plus a boatload of teaching and job applications.
Notes explaining my moves to avoid the appearance of fiat.: Datestamp: 640 PM 10 27. Draceana readies Dimension Door against any attack by the party if she is given even a few moments to do so.
I have a fun/silly theorycraft archery build to throw into the fray. At level ten, it's an Eldritch Guardian 2/Unsworn Shaman 8 with a goat familiar. You get a dynamic duo of hornbow archers by transforming the familiar using Alter Self. It shares your BAB and combat feats (including ewp:hornbow), and now it has hands! Plus, due to Unsworn, you can try out all the cool shaman familiar powers, some of which will be better at low levels, some at higher levels. Fast healing? A fly speed? DR? STR boost (best for DPR)? All are in play! Probably not competitive with the very best, but my preliminary DPR calculations seem to say it's viable and competes with the lower end of the builds featured on this thread. I've tried building it with various dips and they can boost raw DPR, but I think plain Unsworn Shaman is probably the all-around most powerful route. Zen Archer 3 is tempting, but even without it you get a lot of arrows in the air. Of course it gets better if the GM lets a Greater Hat of Disguise work for infinite Alter Self instead of casting once per battle. Your familiar would need to activate the hat once every three minutes. That could look weird. Suggested command phrase: "Remember you are mortal". My DPR sketches (I could post them but I'm not sure they are airtight) assumed that I'd be spending a round to cast Alter with a standard action and the build was still viable, so the hat is truly optional. A Shaman 8 with Magical Lineage: Alter Self and Quicken Spell might not need the hat for DPR mapping, but feats are tight. If crafting is in play, the Unsworn+Fetish hex means free Craft Wondrous whenever you have downtime, which means a cheaper hat, and it negates some of the pain of having two sets of equipment to buy. Mauler? Protector? Sage? I like that Protector works both ways and Life gives the familiar fast healing. Mauler would likely be best for DPR.
Jack
Elma makes a break for the door and gets through.
Jack misses her escape, and couldn't have caught her if he wanted to. She's moving fast. He considers his two unconscious party-members. From a proud gang of seven humans and three orcs, and three random zombies to boot, he only has three active warriors left. He has no means of healing his wounded and no experience in healing. He says, "Well boys, I guess we have to leave these fellas behind. It's sad but they will only slow us down."
His men reject this plan outright, arguing that they need to find some healing magic. Thinking quickly, Jack moves to stabilize the mercenaries:
He snarls cruelly. "Those scumbags who wrecked our hideout have healing magic. With these guys we've got some leverage. Let's see if we can work out a deal..."
Jack
Elma quaffs a second potion, this time of Longstrider, edging towards the door again...
Jack takes a look around, realizing she must be somewhere...
But he juussst misses the footprints in the dirt...
Checking to see who managed to stablize: Bandit 1
Bandit 1 is stable.
Bandit 2 is dead-dead Bandit 3
Bandit 3 is dying but his friends have a chance to save him...
They staunch the bleeding at death's very door.
Jack 7/10
This round is much like last round. Jack keeps working on his bonds. Sarge declines to Cleave again, focusing on keeping his defenses up.
He fails to land his attack...
Finally, the old campaigner succumbs to his wounds. Elma reaches into her pocked and quaffs a potion of Invisibility. She fades from view, and starts creeping 5 ft towards the doorway of the camp...
Jack laughs heartily, Atta way to do it, boys! Come cut me free! One of them does, rushing over and slicing deftly through the ropes. Where's the she-dog got to? I've got a few things to tell her, after she shoved a crossbow in my face! chuckles Jack Ratt.
Jack 6/10
This round is much like last round. Jack keeps working on his bonds. Sarge finally has a chance to Cleave, spinning to his new antagonists and attempting to take two of them with one swing:
He utterly cleaves one of them, but the carry-through fails.
Elma tries again
Definitely panicking now.
Sarge stands alone, fending off the three remaining bandits with his mighty shield...
Elma tries to ascend her rickety ladder:
Elma fails to get out. She's panicking now.
The first of the bandits finishes the Private. The other two move in on Sarge.
They can't piece his defenses.
Jack 5/10
This round is much like last round. Jack keeps working on his bonds. The bandits keep going after their targets, who respond accordingly.
Neither Sarge nor his remaining opponent can make any headway.
Elma spends her round piling a few things against the inside of the palisade. Seeing how wounded Sarge is, she's making herself a back door.
The corporal is overwhelmed by the bandits lined against him, and, like Sarge, has difficulty maintaining his footing against the onslaught.
Jack 4 /10
This round is much like last round. Jack keeps working on his bonds. The bandits keep going after their targets, who respond accordingly.
A terrible blow against the old man!
But he gets his revenge, sending his opponent to Pharasma.
Oh dang! The other bandit confirms a crit, and Sarge is barely on his feet... this bandit's last four roll have been 19, 1, 20, 20.
Elma shoots her light crossbow into melee. She's getting nervous.
If she wasn't shooting into combat, that would have hit. In the other half of the combat, a bandit goes after the private, shifting to ensure flanking for his friends:
He connects and wounds the lad.
Everyone else just waves their blades around...
Jack 3 /10
Jack keeps working on his bonds. The bandit fighting Sarge 5-fts into a flanking position:
He dips his shortsword into the veteran. Sarge, no longer with an opportunity to Cleave, does his best with what he has:
His counter gashes the bandit badly! His other opponent takes their turn:
And despite his armor and shield, Sarge is now bleeding from several wounds.
The private drops his spear and quick-draws his longsword and smites the man who just got inside his reach:
He deals some damage but doesn't take full advantage of the accuracy of his strike. Another bandit moves around him into flanking position and lunges with his short sword
But misses. Another moves on Sarge:
No dice.
The first, moving to engage Sarge, misses. Sarge, canny veteran of many battles, readies an action to Cleave as soon as two bandits are in range. He doesn't have to wait long, as a second bandit moves into range.
His clever tactic fails, this time, and the bandit ripostes:
No harm. Elma shoots her light crossbow into melee
Then she scuttles to the back of the palisade, back to the wall. Another bandit goes after the private:
He misses
The bandits eventually gather entirely on the top of the demon's face, drawing their swords and suddenly rushing the two doors, three at each. They rush right into defenders who have waited for them, not fooled for an instant by their jabber.
miss
miss
hit
hit The first bandit goes down, unconscious, but the others swarm in behind him and engage the small party. Three on the private, one on Sarge.
Not fooled for a second, Elma whispers to Sarge, "They're gonna come up here and they don't give a damn if I kill Jack. What should I do?" Sarge, who has withdrawn from the ledge into the palisade, walks over to where she's standing and says, "Get ready to hit the first one that comes through the doors. We won't shut the palisade. Better to try to focus them, path of least resistance. Ready your spear, Private!" Meanwhile two of the bandits keep talking to the fort, lying about good intentions while holding bows at the ready. The other four begin to climb up around the demon's face.
"Calm down, Lady, we'll talk, we just want Jack to be ok..."
Jack suddenly whistles a shrill, unusual note.
Elma looks into his eyes and sees that he's trying to signal the bandits outside. She yells this to Sarge. The next bandit whispers to the rest, "Jack's up there! Let's save him!" He heads towards the path up to the palisade. Elma yells at Jack, "Why the hell are you signalling them!?" He tries to explain, "Umm well, I mean, maybe they are friendly folks..." She doens't buy his lies this time. "It's your gang, isn't it? You bastard, you want them to kill us! I AM GOING TO LIVE!" She moved next to him and points her crossbow at his face. She yells, "Come any closer and Jack gets a bolt in his brain!"
Another day, another arrow:
The private grabs his gear and heads to the gate. He heard Sarge's command to Elma, so he's not about to expose himself to arrow fire. He holds his light crossbow in one hand, his longsword in the other. By now, all the bandits are in the clearing in front of the demon's mouth, and they pepper Sarge with deadly shots:
One very dangerous shot leaves a nasty wound in Sarge's side, but just misses critical internal organs.
Init order: Jack
Sarge springs up from his place by the fire and interposes himself and his shield between Elma and the bandits. "Get into the palisade, we'll hold 'em there!" He activates Total Defense, raising his shield to the level of his helm so only a sliver of his eyes are left to watch the bandits below.
One of the bandits in the front group and one from the rear group act next. The first shoots again, while the second rushes forward and also shoots at Elma.
One of the arrows twists through the underbrush and catches Elma's torso. She yells in pain. 5 damage.
Init order: Jack
So, the spell says (according to d20pfsrd) "The destination must be an open space on a solid surface." I think that means no coffin, right? No drop into lava. I mean, we can find a way around the restriction, plenty of horrible things can happen on an open, solid surface. But that does at least require some creativity on the wizard's part. Also I just noticed the original thread is from 2013. *flutters away*
So I posted my polymorph answer before seeing she wants to be a regular goat. Better idea: maybe let her and her BF play a co-character, with her controlling the Animal Companion of his druid. Hire a hireling to be the dwarf cover (a halfling with undersize mount might be better). Use the Skittergoat stats: Skittergoat.
Baleful Polymorph but she passed the will save!
Operakeet: these small psittacine birds LOVE music, especially the human voice. A flock of operakeets is known as an ovation. They make two sounds themselves: the sound of a hand clapping, and the sound of an impressed whistle. They mob talented performers, attempting to land on their shoulders and kiss their lips. They naturally live in the forest, but are often found infesting music halls and conservatories, where their acidic guano makes them adorable, horrible pests. Sometimes, they are disparagingly called "groupies." If a bard attempts a performance in an area infested with operakeets, they must make concentration checks to maintain the performance much like a wizard casting in combat (the DC depends on the size of the ovation). If they have an operakeet familiar or are accustomed to operakeets, they gain "lingering performance" as a bonus feat while being mobbed/applauded by operakeets, as their encouraging whistles keep the magic in the air that much longer.
Oh they bunch up in Rappan Athuk. Cleave will be more useful there than many dungeons. Pushing Assault is good though.
Whoa there Brand! Max at first, half after rounded up. But obviously I’m not checking.
I made a campaign and am going to be fleshing out the page over the next few days. Feel free to float on over to the discussion page and let me know if you're interested--I'll hold off on running a recruitment until I know how many we already have. You're all welcome to come by, including those who were considering GMing--maybe you feel like getting in on this as a player? If we have more than six hopefuls already, we'll work it out over there.
Ok, I'll get a thread going. Hope this works out!
Weird, I've been wanting to run Rappan Athuk as a PbP and was wandering over to start a recruitment when I saw this thread. I've played it up to the cusp of level 13 and have pierced to the underdark below (I own the Cyclopean Deeps books). I've GM'd it a fair bit in real life, as well. The most fun I've had is at low level and near the surface. I'd be especially interested in running a game that combines the occasional grueling dungeon crawl with deeper interactions with the town of Zelkor's Ferry and its environs. Your actions will have consequences not only for the PCs, but for the local economy, that sort of thing. Somewhat like what Pinvendor describes for Slumbering Tsar (I don't own that one). Of course, I'm willing to let the characters lead the story, but it'd be great if some village life sounded especially fun to some of you. Note though: In the games I've played, I've seen 13 PCs die what would have been permanent deaths (three of them were successful at negotiating a second chance). We would definitely need a group where failure can be part of the fun. I'm ready to start whenever.
@Lectric: My experience of the archetype is that while the level 10 ability looks great (but I never got that far), its real power is the shift in player psychology. Playing my scrollmaster gave me an incentive to blow my treasure on powerful over-leveled scrolls, which in turn meant that I was able to solve the toughest early encounters for the party while a normal wizard is still casting level one spells. Even the rapid degradation of the scrolls made me more likely to actually cast them, rather than risk their disintegration. Super fun. But the broken rules kept me from feeling fully comfortable with the archetype, so I stopped playing it. @Pizza Lord: yep. A lot of it doens't make much sense. The GM ends up deciding how it functions, which is especially bad for PFS. You know how sometimes the author of a thing pops up on the forum and says what they intended? That would be so great right now. So, if you're out there and reading this--and I know the archetype is really old so said person may well be elsewhere--we'd appreciate a pointer or two! It's in a hardback, after all.
Reasonable, still it's hard to say for sure what the order of operations should be.
Hold a Ring Gate. On the other side of the Ring Gate, you can have (many of these ideas aren't originally mine): A friend with a reach weapon.
They are also useful for telling when you enter a shielded area. "Oh dang, the ring gate just stopped working. Better be really careful." Or all of the above.
I just want to pop in and say that the Growth subdomain is incredibly fun, so... I vote for a straight cleric with that and just invest in melee. Or an inquisitor, that might work? My own Growth character is a goliath druid.
I also love the Scrollmaster in theory, but the rules are a broken mess. It's a shame, really. It'd be my first pick for an Archetypes Unchained book. Here are some threads on the issue, some I found, some I started. You'll see that your questions are not uncommon, and the best advice is "Ask your GM." But you'll also see some cool solutions people have proposed. I used Slim Gauge's solution--if you drop the scroll, it becomes a normal scroll again, but if you pick it up and use it as a scrollblade, its prior damage is still there. You need houserules just to make this thing function.
One I've been working on as an NPC: an Eldritch Guardian who uses Share Spells and a scroll (or otherwise finds a way) to cast Alter Self on his goat protector familiar to turn her into an elf (say), then pops a Greater Hat of Disguise on her elf head for infinite Alter Self to stay in that form (yeah I know, you have to activate it every 3 mins, but let's just say that's feasible). So now he has a humanoid with all of his combat feats to chill with. He gives her a ring of eloquence, and now she can even talk with everyone. This guy, he's wanted by the law and by the criminals and everyone else--so he carefully arranges poisons and buffs to fail the first save of a scroll of Baleful Polymorph, but pass the second save. Now he's a little bird with his own mind intact. His elf familiar picks up his falcata (or hornbow) and his other gear, and dons his armor. These days he's riding around on his elf familiar who has all of his combat feats. Protector works both ways, so she has effectively the same HP that he does. To the outside world, she's a moderately competent fighter (decent STR) with a pet and a verbal tic. Nobody knows why she seems so... familiar. These two work with the party (hired to hunt him down, perhaps) until there's enough trust built up between them (he realizes they won't betray him for money, etc. With some parties I've played with this might actually never happen)--and then, during some particularly nasty fight (and especially if elf goat's somehow incapacitated), she will demand that the party cast Dispel Magic on her birdie. Suddenly, backup appears! ...I, uh, I may also have somewhat watered-down builds for using this as a PC, including ones that don't rely on the Greater Hat of Disguise. I've been meaning to post an Advice thread about it to get the last details figured out. Maybe soon.
Make everyone take a level of barbarian for level one! After that they can do what the want.
Any prepared full caster that specializes hard in a level 3 spell would qualify. Fireball, Dispel Magic, Ice Spears, Pup Shape (heh) or Aqueous Orb and all the feats and traits to fit? Something so ridiculously invested in a single spell that the first four levels would be boooring--and dangerous, to boot. I'm sure there are other good (maybe better) spells for this. Craft Construct comes online at 5....
Skeletal Champion?
"I wish I was dead." Something many an angsty village teenager (or any-ager) has said, perhaps sadly, perhaps playfully; and then, as they tossed in a copper...
32. Paragon Surge, especially for "creative" uses. I'm guilty.
Try to get lots of natural attacks and an agile amulet of mighty firsts? It's nice because it applies to so many easy-to-add attacks. Oni Spirit Mask (Edit: I can't seem to find this one anymore? Maybe it has a different name?), Ring of Rat Fangs, Claws of Asmodeus (you're even evil!). Then find a way to get into their square (hopping off the T Rex?) and you're terrifying.
Please consider Moira Keening for your Blight campaign. As a big fan of Rappan Athuk, I'd love to see what Frog God Games has going on in Castorhage. Thanks!
I'm just putting together a submission--Moira Keening, a Dirge Bard. Her profile got eaten by the website but I'll type it up again in a bit.
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