Plague of Shadows has been out for almost two years,and i think i read someone that wanted to post the statblock of Elyana, the starring char,but never found any.
I tried to stat her myself,waiting for her second adventure,but have had some problems because the first book doesn't say a lot about her:
she is a ranger, her initial favored enemy are surely humans and she has a mare as animal companion (Persaily if i remember correctly).
What isn't clear is:
What languages does she speak ? (it isn't important,but one would like to know when filling the sheet)
What is her fighting style ? (in the book she rocks both at arcery and TWF)
What her gear? (she says she has a strenght-enhancing bracer i think,but shouldn't that be a belt of giant str.? ; plus she has the ring that opens the portal to the shadow plane,but how to create such an item with herolab?)
In the end i left her at 1st level, if anyone has suggestion on how to add her levels they'll be welcome.
Elyana Sadrastis lvl 1 female elf ranger
For the lang, i assumed the most obvious for a starting elven PC beside elven and common,that would be gnome
Rats -- I'm having trouble opening this.
Thanks for your interest re: Elyana. Given her upbringing, she didn't have a chance to learn that third starting language, not at the start. And I imagine when she was first getting off the ground she was a Fighter rather than a Ranger. I roughly statted her up before I wrote the first book, but I think it spoils some of the fun if I get too specific.
I posted a little about her just today, and some of the info might help:
http://bit.ly/XLjw3j
Rats -- I'm having trouble opening this.
Thanks for your interest re: Elyana. Given her upbringing, she didn't have a chance to learn that third starting language, not at the start. And I imagine when she was first getting off the ground she was a Fighter rather than a Ranger. I roughly statted her up before I wrote the first book, but I think it spoils some of the fun if I get too specific.
I posted a little about her just today, and some of the info might help:
http://bit.ly/XLjw3j
Mr. Jones, it's a honor.
I'll send you a PM with her statblock in a different format if the PDF isn't opening for you.Sorry for the problem.
I'm delighted you liked the character well enough to go to all this effort!
This is much more thorough than what I did when I roughly statted her out and worked up her feats. All of that is in one of my older writing notebooks, and perhaps if there's sufficient interest I can dig that up some day. Right now my time's eaten by putting my final polish on her next novel length adventure, so I don't think I have time to go looking for it today.
I never thought about what she would look like as a 1st level character, except that I think she probably started out with Fighter levels.
I grew up playing AD&D, when stats didn't rise. While I've played several years worth of Pathfinder now, I don't know the system well enough to have an innate sense for how much stats rise over the course of levels. My sense is that they can go up a little, but not a huge amount. If I had been gaming her, I would probably have been dropping stat points into Con (to overcome the racial minus) and Dex as she rose.
Even with that in mind, I'd suggest that her CON and IN are both a little low in your work up. Elyana's pretty quick on the uptake, even if she's not a genius. And she's tough for any race, but especially for an elf -- I seem to recall that I picked out some stamina related feats (although keep in mind that three years ago there wasn't yet an Advanced Player's Guide, or other follow-ups, so I was working only from feats available at the time). Like Corwin of Amber, one of my very favorite fictional heroes, one of her key personality aspects is that she *just keeps going.*
I don't know if you're familiar with the diceless Amber system or not, but it has four attributes, Warfare, Endurance, Psyche, and Strength. Corwin is statted out as the highest ranked prince of Amber not in psyche, strength, or warfare, but Endurance, and that's because he just never gives up.
Perhaps because of long years gaming Amber, I always look at stat blocks as clues to a character's personality. And, though perhaps I'm reading more into CON than is intended (but can't every GM make house rules for his campaign?)I think Elyana has an uncharacteristically high stamina. She can go for long periods without rest. She can grit her teeth and keep striving even through incredible pain. She certainly has Toughness and Iron Will, although that doesn't QUITE get her what I want either. I guess what I'm saying is if there were a Willpower stat in D&D, hers would be an 18 (and higher stats are allowed these days, aren't they -- so perhaps higher!)
She started out with a poor (if not catastrophically bad) strength, which is why she wears the Dwarven strength bracelet, which is too bulky to wear around her slim wrist, so she keeps it around her bicep. There's nothing just like it in the rule books, but you're right in thinking of it like a strength belt. I just wanted something a little unique, so I figured some ancient Dwarven craftsmen had ensorcelled some strength enhancements into matching bracelets, only one of which ended up with Elyana. It's old, battered, and has dwarven battle scenes on it, which is why she wears it under her sleeve (she's not fussy about her appearance, but dang, the thing is pretty ugly and quite unfeminine). It takes her strength up into the low teens -- enough to comfortably wield her long sword one handed and for others to occasionally note that she's stronger than she looks, but not enough for her to manage anything Herculean. The bracelet also has a minor enchantment upon it so that it's sympathetic to other magics -- she can feel if an item's magic by touching it, at which point the bracelet hums against her skin.
Elyana's sword is a minor artifact, but I'm leaving a lot of its capabilities unsaid, although some should be inferred from what she can do with it. It's not an existing sword from any of the rule books, and it's one that's been in her family for generations. Some day I hope to get around to telling a story or two with the weapon as the central focus.
Thanks for the long answer.
Yes, i liked the book and the starring char a lot, (i wrote a brief summary of the entire book in italian for a friend of mine who doesn't know very well English.....i myself wonder how much of the lang i know but it is good enough to read and play).
A great deal of her stats was hard to figure,in the book she seems quick both in reasoning and moving, and charismatic,but not so strong or durable.
And from the reading i thought of her only as a ranger (they have high combat stats anyway,so in a novel it is easy to mistake them for fighters)
And i had the limitation of having to deal with the point buy system (i used the high fantasy one, or 20) which especially at level 1 doesn't allow for very high stats in every ability,and as a ranger she needs high dexterity and wisdom (tracking/survival)
Can't wait for her second novel,good work.
edit:no, never heard of that diceless system,Amber; i started playing in 1983 with the "red box" edition of D&D, haven't played very much AD&D.
Among the systems i played the most since then i can mention Marvel Superheroes, Palladium's Robotech,GURPS,STAR WARS (west End Games ed.). Went back to D&D with WotC era and now playing only Pathfinder.
Thanks, Gandal.
I figure she started as a Fighter, then later multi-classed and has a few Ranger levels.
To be as good as she is and JUST be a ranger, she'd be using a lot more spells. And I didn't really want her to be much of a spell user. So she's a low to mid level ranger, but a high level fighter.
With the built you had in mind (even if only as a few sketches on a writ.notebook) i figured she would need at least 8 levels of ranger beside her fighter levels.
She casts Charm animals (or similar) and Cure Light Wounds (2nd level ranger spell) so at least ranger 8.
With an unspecified number of fighter levels she will be in the 15+ range,and as such would conlict with some situation she went through in the novel (no way Galtan would have taken her so easily).
I'll just stop trying to build a char intended for a novel with game stats,i should have known.
Hah! Fair enough.
Try creating Conan with game stats -- it's really difficult to do. We could surely never do it in original D&D. He had to be multi-classed to a ridiculous level.
The problem is the system that requires th PC to have lvls in a given class to perform feats or know something.
I've always found GURPS or ROLEMASTER the perfect systems to stat char without making them ridiculously powerful.