|
I've been trying my hand at making PACG characters of late, and my latest (okay, second) creation is my start of turning all the characters in the Hell's Rebels game I'm running into card game characters. I started with the investigator with a level in inspired blade swashbuckler because I had the best ideas what to do with him. His character description has a very minor spoiler for Hell's Rebels, so be warned. Any thoughts or input are welcome.
Percy
Male Elf Investigator
Some may call Percilel a Forlorn elf, but he’s always had too much natural joie de vivre to take such a label seriously. His Pathfinder parents dragged him all over the Inner Sea region, but Percy, as the humans call him, decided to settle in the Silver City of Kintargo. He’s found his place teaching half-elf girls languages and etiquette so that they can have the skills they need to survive… as spies.
SKILLS
Strength d4 □+1
Dexterity d10 □+1 □+2 □+3 □+4
-Stealth: Dexterity +2
Constitution d6 □+1 □+2
Intelligence d10 □+1 □+2 □+3 □+4
-Diplomacy: Intelligence +3
-Perception: Intelligence +2
Wisdom d6 □+1 □+2
Charisma d6 □+1 □+2
POWERS
Hand Size 5 □6
Proficiency: Light armors □Weapons
For your check that invokes the Finesse trait, you gain the skill Melee: Dexterity +2.
When you play a card that has the Alchemical or Liquid trait, you may discard it instead of banishing it.
When another character encounters a bane (□or boon), you may give that character a card with the Alchemical or Liquid trait. (□If that character plays the card during the encounter, that character may bury it instead of banishing it).
CARDS LIST
Favored Card Type: Item
Weapon 3 □4 □5 □6
Spell -
Armor 1 □2
Item 5 □6 □7 □8
Ally 3 □5 □6
Blessing 3 □4
Role: Spymaster
The spymaster knows more about you than you know about yourself.
Hand Size 5 □6 □7
Proficiency: Light armors □Weapons
For your check that invokes the Finesse trait, you gain the skill Melee: Dexterity +2.
When you play a card that has the Alchemical or Liquid trait, you may discard it instead of banishing it.
When another character encounters a bane (□or boon), you may give that character a card with the Alchemical or Liquid trait. (□If that character plays the card during the encounter, that character may bury (□or recharge) it instead of banishing it).
□If you are alone at your location, you may recharge a card to evade a (□boon or) bane (□and put it on top of its location deck if it came from one).
□When you play an ally that has the Human or Elf trait, you may recharge it instead of discarding it.
□You may use your stealth skill in place of any listed skill to acquire a weapon or item (□or armor or ally).
Role: Inspired Blade
Slash! Parry! Riposte! Repeat!
Hand Size 5 □6 □7
Proficiency: Light armors □Weapons
For your check that invokes the Finesse trait, you gain the skill Melee: Dexterity +2 (□+3).
When you play a card that has the Alchemical or Liquid trait, you may discard it instead of banishing it.
When another character encounters a bane (□or boon), you may give that character a card with the Alchemical or Liquid trait. (□If that character plays the card during the encounter, that character may bury it instead of banishing it).
□When you fail a check to defeat (□or a check against) a monster, you may reroll 1 die (□2 dice); you must take the second result.
□You may recharge a card to add your Intelligence skill to your combat check with the Finesse trait.
□When you defeat a monster on your turn, and your check to defeat had the Finesse trait, you may discard (□or recharge) a card to immediately explore again.
This is a very solid build. You didn't make any of the easy to spot mistakes (Your skills add up to 42, you have the correct number of all the feats, etc). Your skill count is on the high end, but that fits an investigator. Diplomacy: Intelligence is odd, but I seem to recall that investigators have an ability that causes that to make sense. Also, the lack of craft is odd, especially with his heavy potion emphasis. I usually recommend you have at least one skill tied to a lower die, if only for flavor, but I'm not sure you need it. The cards look fine. You have a lot of abilities related to items, but it's pretty rare for a character to get 6+ items to start, so 5 is probably okay. Hand Size and proficiencies are probably correct.
Your baseline powers all look reasonable. Finesse combat is tried and true, and works here. The alchemist discard makes sense for an alchemist hybrid. The third ability is kind-of weird flavorfully, since you're handing items between different locations, but it does nothing if restricted to your location, and I like the idea of utilizing a toolbox all over the field. I don't know if there are card memory issues with the bury during the encounter effect (not player memory, but in the 'cards don't have memory FAQ' way), but I think you're probably fine. I'm sad that the inspiration mechanic isn't really represented here, since it was such a defining trait of my investigator, but if that wasn't the case for this character, it looks great.
Your role cards continue your solid design. I appreciate that you still made sure to have role feats to enhance your baseline powers and increase handsize, as a lot of people forget that. It's a bit weird that after feats, the characters you hand potions to can use them better than you can (recharge vs discard). You might consider leaving the donation power as a discard as well. Also, I've always been a bit nervous about powers that let you use skills that they normally can't be used for (your stealth to acquire power). You usually either want it to be on a skill that isn't going to be great on its own, so it's not always used, or you need it to take a lot of feats. I'd consider putting another feat gate to get all of the listed cards, but I'm not sure where you'd pull it from. Finally, the final power on the Inspired Blade I believe you can remove the Finesse requirement, since it adds a lot of words for what I imagine will usually be a major corner-case situation (winning a combat you didn't use a weapon on). However, as I think about it, that may have been done to prevent bombs, in which case I could see the justification for keeping it. It's also an exceptionally powerful ability, but probably not worryingly so, since I don't think Percy is ever going to be a groups A combat option, given his stats and finesse restriction.
On the whole, I was able to find a few nits to pick, but that's really all they are. This is an exceptional start, one of the best first drafts I've seen. Keep it up!
|
|
Thanks for the feedback, guys! I know he's not as super investigator-y as he could be. The other character I made was more investigator-y, especially in her empiricist role. I provide her here for context. Credit where it is due: Theryon helped quite a bit with this one, and cartmanbeck gave some feedback as well.
Ollie
Female Human Investigator
Ollie has one goal in life---to make friends with absolutely everyone. Whether that means hosting parties for the elite of Alkenstar or helping out the workers who man the elevator, Ollie is prepared to use her vast intellect to do make herself indispensable to all she meets. And if occasionally her insistence that modern science is superior to outdated beliefs causes her to utter a harsh word… Well, everybody has room for improvement!
SKILLS
Strength d6 □+1 □+2 □+3
Dexterity d8 □+1 □+2 □+3
-Ranged +1
Constitution d8 □+1 □+2
Intelligence d12 □+1 □+2 □+3 □+4
-Knowledge: Intelligence +2
-Diplomacy: Intelligence +2
-Disable: Intelligence +1
Wisdom d4 □+1
Charisma d6 □+1 □+2
POWERS
Hand Size 5 □6
Proficiency: Light armors
You may discard (□ recharge) a card to add your Knowledge skill to your combat check (□or bury a card to add your Knowledge skill to a combat check by another character at your location.)
When you would banish a card that has the Alchemical or Liquid trait for its power, you may discard it instead. (□ If the card has the Healing trait, you may discard another card that has the Alchemical or Liquid trait instead.)
CARDS LIST
Favored Card Type: Ally
Weapon 3 □4 □5
Spell -
Armor 1 □2
Item 4 □5 □6
Ally 4 □5 □6 □7
Blessing 3 □4 □5
Role: Empiricist
The empiricist always has the right tools at hand to analyze her surroundings.
Hand Size 5 □6
Proficiency: Light armors
You may discard (□ recharge) a card to add your Knowledge skill to your combat check (□or bury a card to add your Knowledge skill to a combat check by another character at your location.)
When you would banish a card that has the Alchemical or Liquid trait for its power, you may discard (□ or recharge) it instead. (□ If the card has the Healing trait, you may perform the action with another card that has the Alchemical or Liquid trait instead.)
□You may recharge a card to add 1d6 to your non-combat Intelligence (□or your non-combat) check.
□You gain the skill Perception (□and Craft): Intelligence +2.
□At the end of your turn (□or at the start of your explore step), you may examine the top card of your location deck. (□If you use this power at the start of your explore step, and the card you examine is a boon, you may encounter it.)
Role: Socialite
There’s always time for a party!
Hand Size 5 □6
Proficiency: Light armors
You may discard (□ recharge) a card to add your Knowledge skill to your combat check (□or bury a card (□or discard the top card of your deck) to add your Knowledge skill to a combat check by another character at your location.)
When you would banish a card that has the Alchemical or Liquid trait for its power, you may discard it instead. (□ If the card has the Healing trait, you may discard another card that has the Alchemical or Liquid trait instead.)
□When you use your Diplomacy (□or Knowledge) skill against a bane (□or to acquire an ally) with the Human trait (□or any ally that lists Diplomacy in its check to acquire), add 2 (□4) to your check.
□When you would discard (□or banish) an ally with the Human trait for its power, you may recharge it instead.
Next for me to make: A two-weapon-fighting slayer who is distinct from Zadim. But I'm gonna be busy at work for awhile, so unsure when I'll see that one.
Cool! Thanks for the bonus card. You're right that this does definitely look like a more traditional investigator. You really have a good knack for this stull.
Overall, it's another good looking card (it's again missing the trinket flavor skill that a lot of characters have (ie a less-used secondary skill on a low-die ability, see RotR Merisiel's Perception, RotR Valeros's Diplomacy), but once again, it makes sense for the character to not have that. I do think some of your powers are worded weirdly, but I haven't been able to think of a better wording for some of them (the main perpetrators are the 'you may perform that action' wording in the empiricist role, and the first power in the socialite role reads weirdly after the added discard top of deck feat.) Also, on the first new power in the socialite role, I'd consider fusing the two ally-based power feats into one, and write it as "□When you use your Diplomacy (□or Knowledge) skill against a bane with the Human trait (□or against any ally that lists Diplomacy in its check to acquire), add 2 (□4) to your check." That reads a lot better, and I don't think it's nearly powerful enough to need that many feat gates. I'd recommend adding the feat as a hand size increase, since right now you literally can't change hand-size post-role even if you wanted to.