Favored Weapon Suggestion.

[Nickademus]

Shelyn, Goddess of Beauty, Art , Love and Music has a favored weapon of Glaive. Abadar, God of Cities,wealth, Merchants and law has a crossbow.

Im thinking these need to be swapped. Shelyn gets the crossbow, Abadar gets a glaive (or polearms).

It would be really nice to give Shelyn a weapon that could double as a musical instrument, like say a Harpbow, so Bard worshippers would not have to change items in a fight.

your thoughts?

thanks

[The Blue Spirit]

Nickademus wrote:

Shelyn, Goddess of Beauty, Art , Love and Music has a favored weapon of Glaive. Abadar, God of Cities,wealth, Merchants and law has a crossbow.

Im thinking these need to be swapped. Shelyn gets the crossbow, Abadar gets a glaive (or polearms).

It would be really nice to give Shelyn a weapon that could double as a musical instrument, like say a Harpbow, so Bard worshippers would not have to change items in a fight.

your thoughts?

thanks

Unfortunately, you would need to substantially alter Shelyn's backstory since the glaive "Whisper of Souls" she uses as her favored weapon was taken from her half-brother Zon-Kuthon in an effort to redeem him. I think Zon-Kuthon having a maliciously sentient crossbow wouldn't really fit.

[Dane Pitchford]

besides, to me a crossbow doesn't really seem...well, beautiful. With a glaive, there's various styles of fighting that can be graceful and beautiful.

[toyrobots]

I just built a cleric of Abadar solely around the favored weapon: crossbow. So I'm going to have to vote "no" on this.

It's very much a "guardian of the city" type thing. Great weapon, and original too. That's what made Abadar jump out of the list at me.

[Nickademus]

The Blue Spirit wrote:

Unfortunately, you would need to substantially alter Shelyn's backstory since the glaive "Whisper of Souls" she uses as her favored weapon was taken from her half-brother Zon-Kuthon in an effort to redeem him. I think Zon-Kuthon having a maliciously sentient crossbow wouldn't really fit.

Longbow then? Shortbow maybe?

I do realize backstories may have to be changed. I also realize this may already set in stone. It is just my observation that clerics of artistic,love, music like portfolio may not want to be the up front in your face kind of melee characters. Then again, the gliave is a reach kind of weapon...

Elegance may be better suited as a rapier as a weapon than the glaive.

I agree, crossbows are a good "city" type weapon. When i think of city guards I just envision polearms.

Thanks for your feedback :)

[Quandary]

For my 2 cents, I have been playing a Dwarven Cleric of Shelyn
in a Curse of the Crimson Throne game on the PbP boards here,
and I would likewise vote "Nay"

We've already weaved in an element about a troupe of "Glaive Dancers" who use the glaive in their religious/ artistic dances, and presumably are quite beautiful swinging and twirling the weapon amidst their own movements.

In the whole backstory about Shelyn/Zon-Kuthon, it's pretty well explained that the Glaive used to be some cursed uber-death weapon of Zon-Kuthon, probably partly causing Zon-Kuthon's psychotic turn, but Shelyn took it to prevent worse destruction, etc. And I think it's been fun to actually role-play the conflict there, trying to resist the base urges for "vengeance" (from my character's backstory into CotCT) yet ready to cut out the evil in order to let the new flourish. I think this is actually one of the most interesting stories of Golarion's gods, how the "Evil" Zon-Kuthon followers will not act against the "Good" Shelyn, bringing a "family" dynamic ahead of the Good/Evil dichotomy... Although Shelyn herself could always be corrupted MUAHAHAHA

I think if you want to play a character who is really creative, pacifistic, etc, you just shouldn't have a melee weapon at all, therefore the specific favored weapon is irrelevant. I would guess that a good portion of Shelyn followers DON'T use the glaive for much besides ceremonies, but SOME of her followers do embrace the martial side of it, but with balance, since she isn't a martial/war goddess.

RE: The crossbow,
I've actually been wondering if the Beta will be updating Spiritual Weapon at all to be more specific how Ranged Weapons are dealt with (i.e. can you add the crossbow range to the spell range, or is it the greater of the two?)

[toyrobots]

Nickademus wrote:

I agree, crossbows are a good "city" type weapon. When i think of city guards I just envision polearms.

The Heavy Crossbow really comes into it's own when you're on the right side of an arrow-slit. :)

[kickedoffagain]

Nickademus wrote:

Longbow then? Shortbow maybe?

I do realize backstories may have to be changed. I also realize this may already set in stone. It is just my observation that clerics of artistic,love, music like portfolio may not want to be the up front in your face kind of melee characters. Then again, the gliave is a reach kind of weapon...

Elegance may be better suited as a rapier as a weapon than the glaive.

If you want to keep the background, Shelyn could take some form of Spiked Chain or Whip as her favored weapon, and have it said that she stole a chain-weapon from her brother, but that her worshippers are more likely to use silk scarves (with weighted tips, treat as whips) as weapons, singing sinuously through the air to wrap around an unsuspecting foe who didn't recognize that she was armed...

If you want to just ditch the background, any weapon that could be seen as musical or graceful could work. A quarterstaff could be used with many graceful styles, and also serve as a percussion instrument (even an impromptu one, as the priest raps it against the ground as he spins it around in a battle display). Rapier, as you mention, and they could even customize their rapiers to have fluted hilts that whistle as they whip them around, giving them their own kung-fu movie special effects soundtrack as they show off their swordplay.

The bow, as you mention above, fits with the goddess of love schtick, hearkening to Cupid, 'striking the heart' of the victim.

But, for the most part, while I'm good with weapons that can be tweaked to make some keen noises during combat, it's part of the Bards class that he isn't supposed to be meleeing and making music at the same time. Singing is as good as it gets, and even then, the song starts to fade once he starts the stabby stab.

A *magic item* that can be used as a weapon + instrument, on the other hand, is tres cool, and the Magic Item Compendium has a few singing bow / singing sword type items that allow you to maintain Bardic Music whilst slaying your critics.

Then again, you could go all Aborigine and have Shelyn's faithful use a bull-roarer / sling combination weapon... Vooom, vooom, vooom, swish, CRACK. "ow!"