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Hm, this sounds very interesting. I would probably prefer 1st edition since I know it well. But, I have a thimble-full of experience with 2e so it would also be okay. 1e: Half-Elf Bard, maybe with a Swashbuckler dip. 2e: Half-Elf Rogue I think. If free archetypes would be used then probably Rogue with Bard archetype. Either way, the character is a Spire-born half-elf. Their mother is Shadde-Quah Shoanti from the coastal region of the Calphiak Mountains. When she realized the Mordant Spire Elves planned to take her child when it was born, she decided to disappear to prevent it from happening. She found Holver's Ferry and decided it was probably out of the way enough to be safe. The character grew up in Holver's Ferry, but moved to Riddleport a couple of years ago for a better education. The character is presently back in Holver's Ferry visiting.
No problem. It would probably be a good dip, but I wasn't committed to the idea. Fighter will do what I'm wanting just fine.
@rdknight: The Gray Maiden vigilante does start with a battered version of the armor, if you want to explore that route. I think that thematically it also matches well what you're searching for, if the GM is open to it. @Lapyd: Yeah, it could be a really good dip to start with, not only for the armor but several other things as well. I wouldn't want to stay in Vigilante too long because I'm looking for frontline melee durability, which gets undercut by the weak FORT and d8 HP. But a really nice start. The Masked Maiden's version of Dual Identity, Imperfect Control, might be a significant problem though unless something could be worked out with the GM. Maybe just rolling until the will save is successful each morning so the character can switch from social identify to vigilante identity, then staying in vigilante identity all day? It could even be kind of a fun RP quirk for the character. I'd dismissed it because of this problem, but maybe it's worth having a conversation about it with Spazmodeus.
Sounds perfect! I'm almost certain I've landed on Vanilla Fighter. The Cavalier version has an archetype for Grey Maidens that looks cool, but I worry it would be hard to make work well in a PbP. I'm looking at a couple of builds, sword and board TWF, and polearm/reach weapon. There are some Gray Maiden specific feats I'll be taking which should be good enough to give it the Gray Maiden flavor I'm looking for. Of course a huge part of the package is the armor. Obviously it's too expensive to start with, but I'd want it as soon as possible. Off the cuff my idea would be she does have the armor, but it's not in her possession. Maybe she's been in Diamond Lake for a while now and had to pawn it because she needed the money. As soon as she's made enough to get it out of hock she will. I should have the build ready to submit late today or tomorrow.
I'm still slowly working my way through the Hero's Handbook and figuring out what's what. I'm going to build something from scratch rather than use on of the templates. But, whatever I decide on will be very simple, Paladin, Barbarian, Fighter level simple. I might go crazy and build a Wood Elf Archer Ranger if I'm feeling very ambitious. More likely a Paladin though.
Hi GM Spazmodeus, I'm thinking of applying and have a question about the setting. If I understand correctly the location is north or northeast of Korvosa, and kinda sorta within Korvosa's sphere of influence correct? If that is correct, is it pre or post the events in Curse of the Crimson Throne? I'm thinking about submitting a ex-Gray Maiden character if it's post-CotCC. There are a couple of build options. 1. Cavalier with Sister-in-Arms archetype. 2. Fighter, probably vanilla, but I could see the Drill Sergeant archetype as maybe being useful.
Galahad0430: Actually while I have this pasted in here already, I'd like to ask you for your interpretation of the bonuses for the Herbalism ability. It says Piret can use K Nature in place of Craft (Alchemy) and Profession (Herbalist) checks. It also says Piret gains a bonus equal to class level for Craft (alchemy) to make alchemical items, and Profession (herbalist) to find herbs. The wording is a little wonky though. I would take it to mean "on K Nature checks when when used to replace Craft (alchemy) to make alchemical items, and K Nature checks when used to replace Profession (herbalist) to find herbs. In other words, it works like and Inquisitor's Monster Lore ability, which as Wisdom bonus to creature identification, say K Local for Humanoids. But not for other uses of K Local. It's not terrible if Piret literally has to use Craft (alchemy) and Profession (herbalist) to get the +Level bonus, but it does make getting K Nature for Craft (alchemy) and Profession (herbalist) kind of pointless. It also costs Piret more skill points. What do you think?
I don't mind buying the Hero's Handbook. EDIT: So I'm positive, this is the one to get? Heroes Handbook I'm a little confused about the 1e vs 2e thing on the Pelgrane Press website.
Is a Spiritualist capable of being used and utilized? Ha! I would never disrespect a wizard. That's always a bad policy. But when you have 3 fairly high stats to assign at level 1, it's hard to not be pulled toward MAD builds one couldn't typically manage. As it is I'm looking at a Time mystery Oracle. The background I'd like to use might be a bit out there though. It does connect to Strange Aeons, but in an out of left field kind of way. I'll spoiler the elevator pitch version below and if it's alright, I'll submit the character. Oracle Background: 1. There were two sisters, twins actually, who went hunting for mushrooms and truffles in the forest. They had been warned to never venture too deep into the woods; but they were having unusual success foraging and pressed farther in. 2. They are snatched by a nasty fey creature to takes them to the First World and sells them off at market. They go through a couple or three owners, managing to escape each time. Finally free to wander they try to find a way home. 3. There are ups, downs, and several misadventures along the way. The last one separates the two of them. Marisan, our character, continually searches for her sister, but to no avail. 4. Finally, an agent sent by Shyka locates Marisan and tells her Shyka can help her find her sister and return home. Marisan is taken to the House of Eternity for an audience with Shyka. 5. Shyka confirms they know where Marisan's sister is and can reunite them. But, Shyka will need Marisan to do her a favor first, payment for Shyka's trouble. Marisan agrees. 6. Shyka prepares Marisan bestowing upon her to gifts and talents she will need. She will be sent to a location in Ustalav. There she will find a group of people in. need of her help. She will know them when she sees them. Marisan is to join the group of people and ensure they succeed to the task they have before them. When this task is completed (Strange Aeons successfully completed of course), Marisan and her sister will be reunited and they will be returned top their home. 7. Marisan is a Dual-Cursed Time mystery Oracle who will be taking Fey Obedience. I'm looking at the Feysworn prestige class later on if I can make it work. Probably not 10 levels though.
I mentioned a couple of character concepts, but not builds aside from possible classes and campaign traits. I tend to build characters beginning with the "who what and why" of them first. If I have that much settled, it establishes what kind of relationship with the subjects of the campaign the character will have. After I have a person in mind, I can fit a class and the rest to them. For example, The vengeance driven character I mentioned as an Oracle or Bard could just as easily work as a Slayer or Witch. The political radical Inquisitor or Investigator one could be a Swashbuckler or Rogue. There's lots of flexibility remaining for me to build according to the party's needs. In cases like this one where there is a session zero or similar for character creation, I'm often the last person to be finalized because I don't mind filling in the gaps that remain as the other characters come together. That said, I wonder if you might consider adding one house rule. Classes that get 2 skill ranks per level receive 4 ranks per level instead. Because this particular AP is very social and those skills tend to matter more than usual, it's hard to look at a class like Cleric without wondering how to manage to contribute outside of combat and similar scenarios.
Alexius/The Raven's old frenemy Vantine from Hell's Rebels would enthusiastically confirm him as kind of awful. She is also very disappointed the game didn't last long enough for her to learn how to turn him into a toad. To be clear though, she would have returned him to his normal self in a week... maybe a month, just to teach him a badly needed lesson you see. He could be sweet when he did what she told him. :p
Hi again Slowdrifter. I didn't include any campaign links in my previous post. In case I should, here are my 3 favorite campaigns, which also include 3 of my 4 favorite characters. Rise of the Runelords: Chosen of Sandpoint Character: Rojava Brishen, Archaeologist Bard. Also my first game ever here. Luke's Crimson Throne Campaign Character: Emileva Mavrakis, Vanguard Slayer. War for the Crown with DM Vayelan Character: Amandine Santon, Psychic Detective Investigator. All 3 of these had good longer runs although none of them made it to the end. You'll also probably notice my preference for classes that make skills a big part of what they do. There are plenty more, including my active games, to look through if you like. But since my big 3 are now inactive and there is a long list of inactive campaigns to sort through, now you'll know which ones are my favorites.
Hi Slowdrifter, I'm very excited to see War for the Crown on offer. I had a chance to play it here a few years back and it's easily my favorite AP. Sadly the game didn't last as long as I wanted it to. I've been playing Pathfinder, with a couple of dips into Call of Cthulhu, here for about 11 years. Before then I'd played a little bit of AD&D back in high school, but nothing ever organized enough to finish a module. We had plenty of fun with it though. After high school I didn't play at all for many years, almost forgot about it entirely. Then I came across an article, this one right here . Reading it reminded me how much fun it had been and made me want to pick it up again. It took me a while to figure out how to start. Nobody I knew was interested. After a while I found out about Pathfinder and learned there was a PFS group at the game store just down at the end of my street. I started there and played for about a year. I enjoyed it but was disappointed in how episodic it was. Nothing ever built on what had come before. I stumbled across PbP here and haven't looked back since. RP is my happy zone. I'm proud to say that the WftC run my party had did very well using what must be close to the least amount of physical violence possible. Social and reputational violence was different story. Anyway, I'm in my early 50s and live in the USA, Portland Oregon, so UTC -8. I've typically played in several games here concurrently and can post daily. I have a couple of ideas for characters I'm weighing. 1. Human with father's side of the family Taldan, and mother's side from Iblydos. A Cyclopian Seer archetype Oracle with the Intrigue mystery, or a Wit or Court Bard archetype Bard. Campaign trait Disgraced Noble. She has no strong opinions on government or those kinds of boring subjects, but she's coming for Maxillar Pythareus hard and she will have her retribution. Think Cordelia Chase if you've seen Buffy the Vampire Slayer, or if not let's just say she's a mean girl. 2. Human from an aristocratic family who has radicalized. Now secretly a Milanite Urban Infiltrator Inquisitor, or could be an Investigator. She is a bit of an oddball among her allies in the Milanite church and underground political groups because she is more an incrementalist than revolutionary. Rather then looking at Andoran in admiration, she looks at Galt in alarm. This is why she would be willing to take a chance on reform with Princess Eutropia before tearing the monarchy down. Young Reformer Campaign trait. Sincere, a good planner, maybe not the best sense of humor, but has the ability to fly under the radar in most crowds, including those her allies don't get invitations to.
Probably! Jaquelyn is a caster druid, but more leaning into battlefield control and weather, so there is a lot of space for an oracle to fill if you want to. With Oracle I wasn't thinking about healing as the main purpose of the character, although Oracles can heal as part of the overall package. Having access to the divine spell list could be handy. I'm thinking either the Waves or Succor mystery. Waves might be too close to what you're doing though Jaquelyn since it's a lot of aquatic or water spells and with that battlefield control. The wood mystery also kind of fits weirdly enough considering the ships are made of wood. Regardless of mystery, I'd be making a battle ready Oracle. I can put either Str or Dex high enough to do alright in melee. Probably Str with a boarding pike. I think Ramada is going for primary healer but he's not really there yet. What we don't have is someone who can disable device, would've thought Ramada had that but I didn't see it on his sheet. Oracles can have Disable Device and Trapfinder at 1st level with the Seeker archetype, which is quite good all around. On the other hand, I could also dip 1st level as Unchained Rogue (I wouldn't want to play a Rogue all the way) and then go into Okayo Corsair archetype Swashbuckler using an urumi. I've been wanting to try it out for a long time. Looks very cool. I'll think on it a little more and submit tomorrow or Saturday.
Would an Oracle be something the party would benefit from having? Also, could I use the set of ability scores I rolled back during the original recruitment?
Yeah, I was thinking Celestial as well. But I think I was wrong about 2 extra languages looking at it more. When the GM said 2 I think it was 2 total rather than 2 extra. Taldane is the same as Common, yes. So unless Humans get a bonus language, it should be 1 language by default and 1 language for INT. I'll leave it at Taldane and Varisian unless told differently. I did make one build change. I dropped trained in Craft and trained Lore: Underworld instead. If I don't really need Athletics trained for any good reason, I'll move that point to Craft. It seems repairing shields is a thing and bucklers are flimsy.
A couple of questions to anyone who has an opinion on them. 1. I need to add 2 languages for Ro. One of them will be Varisian because it makes perfect sense. I'm stuck on what to choose for the second one. Ro is human so there's nothing else that's an obvious choice if you've lived most all your life in Sandpoint. But what about boarding school kids? What language might be considered a refined or "classy" language you'd be taught in school? I'm thinking like the way Catholic schools used to teach Latin (or maybe they still do), or a language that is marked as something sophisticated people know, like French tends to be for Americans. I've always used Elven for this in the past, but any other suggestions? 2. If a character is trained in Acrobatics, is there good reason to train Athletics as well? And vice versa. Or is one of the two good enough?
Wait. You can just use a LINK to PB2e like that? I didn't realize... Yup. If you go to the menu drop down and find the "export" category, one of the options is "share copy of character" it will give you the sharable link. It might cure the missing Natural Ambition problem. My shared character sheet has it on there.
Smiles-a-lot very kindly and generously sent me a PM offering to free up Rogue for me to take. I had a bought of weakness for some hours this morning when I was tempted to pass on the offer in favor of Bard with Swashbuckler archetype. All those extra spells compared to Bard archetype looked really shiny. But, I resisted (not understanding the magic system or casting in 2e helped) and I will be fielding a Rogue-Bard as I had initially planned. I should have the mechanics done no later than Friday. Backstory and so forth is already done since I'm reviving a 1st ed. character to give her another shot at finishing RotRL. I will need to tweak things just a little because the prior game did have some custom features that need to be cleaned up, but it should be a simple thing to do. Rogue is better for the character in the end. She considers herself a singer and entertainer. But she is also something of a dirtbag punk as Talene can attest to. Despite some minor faults though, she's really the nicest narcissist you'll ever meet.
@Storyteller Shadow: Ha! It's been a while since I've seen that face. Seems I'm a few inches ahead of you with 2e so here are a couple of things I've found very useful for character creation. There are lots of class and other guides here: Pathfinder 2e Guide to the Guides I use this site for character building. It saves lots of switching back and forth and page flipping trying to keep everything straight: Pathbuilder The free archetype rules provide a second set of "feat slots" starting at 2nd level. Those are used for taking abilities for the archetype you choose. There are both class and non-class archetypes. So Talene could take Cleric as a class and then add a class archetype like Fighter and pick up some Fighter class abilities through the archetype. Non-class archetypes work the same way but they tend to focus on a non-class thing like Loremaster or Acrobat. They work the same but give abilities that may or may not come from other classes. It's a sort of semi-gestalt I guess you could say. But you don't take the better of either class, you only take the available choices for the archetypes at each level when you get an archetype slot. The class guides help a lot because they almost always discuss good and bad class-archetype pairings. Also a note on Pathbuilder. The free archetype option is turned off by default. You can add it by going to Menu -> Character Options -> Use Free Archetype Character Rules, which is down in Advanced Options.
Thanks for the invitation DoctorEvil! Like I implied in my interest post, I've had a few runs at RotRL before but never made it farther than Book 2. I was thinking about rebuilding a favorite character of mine from before (you know the one Storyteller Shadow), which would have been a Rogue, probably Thief racket, with Bard archetype. But if there's already going to be a Rogue in the mix I'm less sure. My experience with 2e is quite thin. So I'll probably look for something easy to play. The class that looks most interesting to me is Thaumaturge; but it also looks too complicated for me to take on this early. I'll do some looking around today.
I suppose if I'm choosing a set of top three campaigns I've been in I'd go with these in no particular order: Sample Campaigns: Rise of the Runelords: Chosen of Sandpoint (Playing Ro Brishen) War for the Crown with DM Vayelan (Playing Amandine Santon) Luke's Crimson Throne Campaign (Playing Emileva Mavrakis) If you're looking for more particular scenes or situations within games, I could pull some out. Let me know.
I am so in for this! I've been hoping a recruitment for Season of the Ghost would come around for a while now. I've been playing Pathfinder for about 12 years now. I started with PFS tables for a couple of years until PFS chapter close by shut down and I found the games here. Since then I've played here exclusively. I've had a go at a large majority of the 1st ed. adventure paths. But since it's fairly rare for the games to last all the way through, the only AP I've played to completion was Iron Gods. War for the Crown, Rise of the Runelords, Curse of the Crimson Throne, and Jade Regent made it as far as book 4. My 2e experience is thin. I've made some characters and applied for a few games here. Two of the 3 games I got into didn't even start. I played in a Rusthenge game for a little while. I'll be applying with a Human Rogue (thief probably) character: Ren Yexiang I will need to go back through the sheet to make sure there's nothing I need to update or change, but the basic character concept will remain the same.
Hey, I was in Idaho doing the family-in-a-cabin thing for Christmas. Not as off the wall as it might sound (if that sounds off the wall) Since I live in Portland Oregon and have relatives in eastern Washington and Idaho. So, sorry for missing the debut and being a tad behind. Over the last few days I've been thinking about the party. It seems, to me at least, there should be a character with strong personal ties to Mendev and/or the Worldwound. Someone who's there trying to save and restore the place, not just to kill demons. Also, at least one human in the party might make sense with the locations being very human in terms of the history and population. With this in mind, I'm going to set aside Endellion in favor of a Kellid Human character who's main goal in fighting the demons of the Worldwound is because she wants to reclaim ancestral Sarkoris for her people. I'm keeping Ranger as it was before. But, I'm switching out Inquisitor for Cleric (Herald Caller) of Pulura. I'll be going into Stargazer at 6th and doing all 10 levels to 16th then back to Cleric. Since Stargazer advances both spell casting and channel energy and that's all a Cleric has anyway how could I not? I'm thinking down the road we might decide having access to the full range of 7-9 level Cleric spells might be a handy thing. Anyway, I should have character completed and a gameplay post in by the end of today.
Ehh, I'm feeling kinda wobbly about the dedicated hour as well. I'm on Pacific time, so in theory it isn't a huge problem. On the other hand, I also know that PbP games go for a very long time (with luck), and things change over time. If I'm saying "sure" now, how can I know the same will be true 6 months or a year or 18 months into the future? I'm not saying no, just a bit concerned about saying yes. In any case, the character I have in mind is an Elf Ranger (Tanglebriar Demon Slayer / Transporter) who is up in Mendev on assignment as a military observer from Kyonin.
So knowing the proposed list of characters so far and given time to think things through more while the site was down, I've dropped the Ranger and Oracle ideas I'd mentioned before. There actually seems to be a dearth of basic smash 'em up martial character submissions. With a 25 point buy, I believe I can put together a really nice Fighter VMC Bard to lead a party into battle. Lots of armor, big ole greatsword. @GM Hurley: Is Variable Multi-Classing allowed? Would a character background of being a former Gray Maiden be too much of a divergence if it still connects well to the plot of the campaign? There are some nice Gray Maiden options for Fighters and/or Cavaliers I'd like to play with.
@GM_DBH: Yeah, I love Slayer. The only tiny complaint I have about the class is I wish there were more talents that were Slayer specific and good rather than most all of the desirable talents coming from Ranger and Rogue. But that's a small nit-pick. My CotCL started with trapfinding as well since she covered the Rogue needs for the party. That's not needed in this case though. I love me some skills so Slayer aside I tend to go with classes like Bard, Investigator, and Inquisitor the most. Of those I think Inquisitor is the best designed overall. I think it's the one that comes closest to bridging the gap between martial and 6th level caster classes. But, it's also far less a support class and more a self-buffer. Anyway, after rooting around through what's possible with Swashbuckler, I think it will be my choice. It's also the one I haven't played before so it's freshest to me. I do worry about the weak Fort and Will but I discovered Swashbuckler can get the twist away feat, which helps immensely with Fortitude. Taking the noble fencer archetype helps with Will. I'll take the Inspired Blade / Noble Fencer archetypes. This also probably works most seamlessly for a backstory with Vencarlo to bring my character into the game.
Hi everyone! Thanks for inviting in to your game. As Kayleigh mentioned we were both playing in a CotCC campaign that ran a maybe about 3 years and folded approximately where this one is now (I guess). My character was a Slayer who was two-handing a falchion, very simple since I was quite new to Pathfinder back then. I was thinking about reworking the Slayer with something more interesting like sword and board TWF. I worked up a quick draft to 9th level and discovered for myself what most people already know; if a character goes the TWF route that is all they do. Everything goes into just making it work. So, I started looking at a couple of other options and now I've drafted out two to consider. I've taken the standard 1 level dip in Swashbuckler for Investigators, but otherwise never played the class. I'm surprised how stout it is. Lots of damage (as long as precision damage works) and probably quite hard to hit between the good AC and opportune parry and repost. Saves are the big weakness. Reflex is excellent and the others are pretty bad. Even trying to help Will and Fort as much as I can, by 9th level I can't fit in the feats to improve those two. The other possibility is a Sanctified Slayer Inquisitor mostly focused on ranged combat. This character would be rebuilt from one I used in a Kingmaker campaign up to 3rd level. Most of the feats are going to archery, but it's better I think to think of her as a switch hitter. She's an Inquisitor of Cayden Cailean (this may sound like a head-scratcher but trust me it does make sense) so she has rapier proficiency. With EitR in use she can automatically swash-a-buckle with no investment. Archery requires a bit of strength so I wouldn't bother with dex to damage. Between studied target, which works equally with ranged and melee, and sneak attack coming from Sanctified Slayer, damage is decent. This doesn't factor in buffs from spells yet. Also the Inquisitor has some nice mobility upgrades from the travel domain and better save bonus across the board. Not quite as good as full BAB, and through using limited resources to get there, but I was surprised at the parity with the Swashbuckler. Either way, I can link the character to Vencarlo as one of his students. If a go with my old character's version and Swashbuckler, I just alter her background to the somewhat happier alternate timeline where the things that happened in the worst possible timeline didn't happen to put her in contact with the party from the beginning. With the Inquisitor, still a student of Vencarlo's. I have that same connection worked out as well for the background. I'll get this all figured out and give you a character to look at over the weekend.
@GM Hurley: I'm tossing around a couple of character ideas but I have some questions about character creation rules before I can decide anything for sure. One of the possible characters is a Ranger, a Kellid from a small tribe that was pushed eastward into the Golushkin Mountains of Brevoy under pressure from the Sunder Horn tribe. The tribe had settled in to a symbiotic relationship with the dwarven Golka Clan until the dwarves disappeared. Since then it's gotten harder to make a living. The Ranger has been variously a smuggler and bounty hunter farther south. The plot connection is to the Golka's disappearance of course. In this case I'm wondering about two archetypes. The first is the Transporter . It seems very cool and well matched for the early campaign exploration. But I wonder whether or not it would remain useful as the campaign continued into the later books. Thoughts or opinions on it? The second archetype is Blood Hunter . I like this one because it seems to address some of the things like the lack of flexibility of favored enemy and favored terrain that makes the Slayer so much more attractive. It's a Paizo creation, but like the Vampire Hunter and Omdura, it doesn't seem to be official. Would it be okay to use it? The second character idea is a character from Uringen in the River Kingdoms. She and her twin sister were alchemical ingredient gatherers who wandered into a spot in the Embeth Forest and got snatched into the First World. After various misadventures and escapades yada yada trying to get back, they were separated. The character then turns to trying to find her sister. Shyka then steps in and offers her a deal of the "you do something for me, and I'll find your sister for you" sort. The something the character must do for Shyka is insert herself into the expedition going to the Stolen Lands and ensure they succeed. Succeed at what? Shyka won't say. But if Shyka is wanting to put a finger on the scale it's probably quite big, maybe Choral the Conquerer or the Shadow plot. My idea with this character is the finish with the Feysworn Prestige class. But how to get there is tricky. Feysworn seems best suited for a full casting class because it advances spell casting and its features are mostly those that help full casters more than others. A Wizard probably works best on the arcane side. On the Divine side, which I've been leaning toward, a Time Mystery Oracle seems very thematic. My question here is about the Half-Elf Multitalented trait. Can a prestige class count as the second favored class, allowing the character to continue selecting extra Oracle spells as an FCB bonus? Finally, would you allow Variant Multiclassing?
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