Inspired by Brother Tylor, I decided to share for feedback one of my homebrew heroes. It was brought about by some talk a few months back about what new the Class Decks could offer, so I latched onto the idea of a hypothetical “Defenders of Sandpoint” deck – which would include the 'named' Allies from RotR making a stint as player characters for a change. Prospective candidates were Ameiko Kaijitsu, Ilsoari Gandetus, and -the subject of the current thread- Shalelu Andosana.
Main Concept: Being the resident town ranger, Shalelu retains and expands on her Ally abilities to scout out danger. Conceptually, I was going for a 'fleet on her feet' forest runner feel, where Shalelu's player would want her to go all over the place, as opposed to tanking any single location. To get the most mileage out of this elusive ranger, you'll want to stock up on all those 'move in the middle of the turn' card (which are usually the next most useless in my group's games, after Potions, so there – I did something about it)
Shalelu also prefers to alert the town at large of incoming danger, rather than to play 'first line of defense' herself, so she'd rather avoid danger when the odds are not in her favor (though, obviously, she's not as good at it as a Rogue).
Of course, it wouldn't do for Shalelu to 'discard herself', should the Shalelu Ally be in her deck – so she gets to recharge all cards with those Scout and Ranger traits that went unused for so long (and that also inexplicably and for no good reason seem to shift, without any indication to consistency and purpose: the original Shalelu ally had 'scout' which never found a use, even though she is a Ranger herself – so I thought 'Scout' replaces a card's 'class trait', while instead indicating some sort of examine capability (see also S&S Lookout); however, in the newest Class Deck there is Ranger card that examines, while not having the Scout trait!? Go figure...). Thematically, this reflects Shalelu's great ranging savvy, which allows her to sometimes act the reluctant 'commander' of sorts, giving useful tips and hints to her less experienced colleagues.
Female Elf Ranger
SKILLS
Strength d8 □+1 □+2
Dexterity d10 □+1 □+2 □+3 □+4
-Ranged: Dexterity +2
Constitution d6 □+1 □+2 □+3
Intelligence d4
Wisdom d8 □+1 □+2 □+3 □+4
-Survival: Wisdom +2
-Perception: Wisdom +2
-Stealth: Wisdom +2
Charisma d6 □+1 □+2Powers
Hand Size 5 □6 □7
Proficient with Light Armors, WeaponsAfter you move, you may examine the top card of your new (□or old) location deck.
If you're alone at your location, you may succeed a Stealth or Survival check with difficulty 6 plus the bane's adventure deck number to evade a monster.
□ When you would discard a card with the Ranger or Scout trait for its power, you may recharge it instead.
Cards List
Favored Card Type: WeaponWeapon 5 □6 □7
Spell - □1 □2
Armor 1 □2
Item 3 □4 □5
Ally 2 □3 □4
Blessing 4 □5
Her first role is based on the archetypal 'here and gone again, I'm better off on my own' behavior. Yes, she'll pop up with an useful warning for the party, but don't expect her to stick around the campfire before departing for yet another excursion in the wild – it's not her fault other humans/elves/whatever are only cramping her style. Meet the Lone Wolf.
Much like her namesake, the Lone Wolf is extremely skilled in tracking down wildlife quarry. More often this means taking down dangerous predators, but in a pinch she's able to turn inoffensive or even friendly animals into sustenance.
Lone Wolf's survivalist instincts and knowledge enable her to circumvent or overcome any obstacle; often with the help of improvised tools, fashioned from sticks and stones, bone or sinew, or whatever else she can scavenge in the wilds.
The above talent comes in especially useful, given that remaining unnoticed can be the difference between life and death, between fresh meat and starvation. When situation demands it, the Lone Wolf ranger can use her improvised tools to fashion a ghillie suit that guarantees she'll remain virtually invisible.
Finally, her knowledge and mastery over Nature's gifts enable her to exploit them with almost supernatural efficiency – be it a concocting a herbal salve to cure herself, finding the perfect spot to build a sheltered sanctuary, or using her acute senses to track quarry at great speed through the land. She never knows what advantage her surroundings will offer her but she'll recognize it when she sees it and she won't let it go to waste.
When the going gets tough, the lone wolf gets going.
Powers
Hand Size 5 □6 □7
Proficient with Light Armors, WeaponsAfter you move, you may examine the top card of your new (□or old) location deck. (□ If it has the Animal trait, you may encounter it and add 1d8 to your checks against it.)
If you're alone at your location, you may succeed a Stealth or Survival check with difficulty 6 plus the bane's adventure deck number to evade a monster. (□ Then you may move.)
□ When you would discard a card with the Ranger or Scout trait for its power, you may recharge it instead.
□ You may use Survival instead of any skill to defeat a barrier (□ or to acquire an item).
□ You may recharge an item to add your Survival skill to your Stealth check.
□ After you banish a Divine spell for its power, draw a non-Attack Divine spell from the box, then discard it (□ or recharge it).
□ You may bury a card with the Animal trait to shuffle 1d4 cards from you discard pile into your deck.
Her second role is quite the opposite to the Lone Wolf. The Ambusher Shalelu embraces her role as Sandpoint's protector, and realizes she'll serve it best by playing nice with others.
Becoming Sandpoint's 'commander' of woodland skirmishes, she's able to forge the town militia into efficient guerrilla unit, staging deadly ambushes for any who would threaten her home. She has eyes, ears, and bows all over the forest.
Ever the consummate hunter, Shalelu knows that a good trap requires a tempting bait. She recognizes this sometimes means her own party members, but she'll swing in in the nick of time on an rope-arrow, getting the proverbial jump on an otherwise occupied enemy. She's also not above luring enemies herself – she'll often engage and then feign retreat, just so she can get her would-be pursuers right where she wants them!
Worry not about the archer that blocks the forest path; worry about the ones that don't.
Powers
Hand Size 5 □6 □7
Proficient with Light Armors, WeaponsAfter you move, you may examine the top card of your new (□or old)(□or both) location deck.
If you're alone at your location, you may succeed a Stealth or Survival check with difficulty 6 plus the bane's adventure deck number to evade a monster.
□ When you would discard a card with the Ranger or Scout trait for its power, you may recharge it (□or put it on top of your deck) instead.
□ You may discard a weapon to add your Stealth skill to a combat check at your location.
□ You may recharge an ally to add 1d4 to any combat, Stealth or Survival check.
□ When another character flips over a monster, you may discard a weapon with the Bow trait to move.
□ When you would shuffle a non-villain monster into a location deck, you may put it under the top card of that deck instead.
So that's about my Shalelu. Any sort of feedback is welcome, paticularly in regards to balance, but also about how the different character flavors are handled (especially with the early PACG characters, I sometimes felt their role powers were just thrown in haphazardly, seldom corresponding to the supposed flavor of the character role; surprisingly enough, I found that this does affect my enjoyment and attachment to the character)
Though I love WAR’s image of Shalelu, I’ve always been afraid to tackle her as a character because I don’t know what she does or what she’s like. It’s great to see someone that understands her bringing her to the tabletop for PACG.
There’s a lot here, so you can skip to the bottom for my main suggested adjustments.
The first power seems a bit weak. As a side note, the power won’t see much use in the Mummy’s Mask AP (personally, I have no problem examining cards in that AP – it’s like Russian Roulette). Have you considered an alternative? One idea:
“At the start of your turn, you may examine the top card of your location deck, (□ and then you may move).”
Alternately:
“After your move step (□ and at the start of your turn), you may examine the top card of your location deck.”
The first alternative would represent Shalelu looking around and deciding that things are a bit too hot, or better handled by someone else, and then skedaddling. The second alternative would represent her looking around upon arriving at a location. Either option still covers down on the concept, I think, but each is a bit more useful all around. Both are a bit more potent than Harsk’s examination power, but each makes up for the other, weaker, powers (I think).
The wording of the second power doesn’t follow the template of similar powers. Also, it allows the player an option of two skills to choose from, both derived from the same main skill (so there’s no real difference unless some other boon enhances only one of those skills). I recommend:
“If you are the only character at your location, you may succeed at a Stealth check with a difficulty of 6 plus the adventure deck level of the bane to evade a monster.”
This follows the wording of RotRL Merisiel’s core power.
The core power you gave Shalelu about cards with the Ranger or Scout trait is pretty much useless in all of the APs, except Rise of the Runelords. Skull & Shackles has 0 such cards, Wrath of the Righteous has 3, and Mummy’s Mask has 1. Worse, the Ranger Class Deck has only 1, and that one is at level 6, so you can’t make up for the lack of Ranger/Scout cards in the APs that way. I recommend that you change the power to affect cards with the Animal trait (possibly keeping Ranger and Scout as part of the base power, or perhaps making those a power feat).
As a side note, Paizo/Lone Shark could add to the Ultimate Add-On decks later by giving us an Ultimate Wilderness Add-On deck, including multiple boons with the Ranger and/or Scout (and Animal) traits and a Shifter character (hint hint hint).
One last question about the core character is about the hand size increase. It seems unnecessary to me since the only power she has that gets rid of cards has a recharge cost, and isn’t likely to be used out of turn. High hand size characters tend to be spellcasters, with Rangers tending to have lower hand sizes. I think you could drop the increase to 7 and use the remaining power feat to improve upon one of the core powers to make it more potent.
In general, I like both of the roles. My main concern with both is that each consists of a lot of small powers – each a single power feat choice with few or no subsequent enhancements through follow-on feats. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, and there are some official characters that follow a similar model with one or both of their roles. The general practice I’ve observed with the official characters is that the majority of their power feats are tied up in one or two powers, with multiple enhancements to make the affected powers the focus of their roles. However, there are many characters that have fewer add-on powers, with each of those having multiple enhancements through subsequent feats.
I like most of the powers (conceptually), though, so it would be difficult to suggest which ones might be removed in order to allow for enhancement of the remaining powers.
Does the Lone Wolf role need the spell power? Could those two feats be used to enhance other powers? For example, if you adjust the first and second core powers as I suggested above, they might be further enhanced (including your original enhancements) as:
(Lone Wolf, using the first alternative form of the power) “At the start of your turn, you may examine the top card of your location deck, (□ and then you may move)(□ and then you may examine the top card of your new location deck)(□ and if the card has the Animal trait, you may encounter it and add 1d8 to your checks against it).”
(Lone Wolf, using the second alternative form of the power) “After your move step (□ and at the start of your turn), you may examine the top card of your location deck (□ and if the card has the Animal trait, you may encounter it and add 1d8 to your checks against it).” This form is very powerful, effectively granting two free examinations and potential encounters (if the card has the Animal trait). It might be too powerful.
With both the original version that you provided and the alternatives I’ve presented, 1d8 seems fairly high. The character is already pretty good at acquiring allies with the Animal trait (high Survival), and players should only perform the examination and/or encountering if they can handle the card (including those with the Trigger trait). Perhaps it should be lowered to 1d4 or a flat 2, with additional power feats increasing the bonus (if that’s where you want to place power feats).
Another place to invest power feats is the third power (either if you remove the hand size increase to 7 or if you remove the spell power for the Lone Wolf role.
(Lone Wolf) “When you would discard (□ or bury or banish) a card with the Animal Ranger or Scout trait for its power, you may recharge it instead.”
(Ambusher) “When you would discard (□ or bury or banish) a card with the Animal or Ranger or Scout trait for its power, you may recharge it (□ or put it on top of your deck) instead.”
As an alternative, you might also enhance the Survival/Stealth check power to:
“You may recharge an item (□ or an ally) to add your Survival skill to your Stealth check.”
One concern I have with the Lone Wolf role is the barrier power. Not all barriers would seem appropriate to this. I suggest adding specific traits (which doesn’t mitigate all of the “inappropriate” barriers, but that’s like worrying about a bell falling on you in the forest):
“You may use Survival instead of the normal skill to defeat a barrier with the Obstacle or Trap (□ or Task or Weather) trait.”
Similarly, the healing power might be enhanced (presumably she has found herbs and what-not in the wilderness, represented by items):
“You may bury (□ discard) a card with the Animal trait (□ or an item) to shuffle 1d4 cards from your discard pile into your deck.”
(The “discard” feat would only be if you want to use both of the spell feat boxes on this power.)
There’s an overlap in the first two of the Ambusher role powers. If you want to reduce the number of powers, these would be good ones to consolidate.
“You may discard a weapon (□ or recharge an ally) to add your Stealth skill to another character’s combat check at your location.”
If that’s not powerful enough, you could remove the “another character” portion. If it’s too powerful, you could adjust it from Stealth skill to Stealth die, or a flat 1d4 (or a 1d6 if 1d4 isn’t sufficient).
I think that the second to last of the Ambusher role powers needs to be revised. Flipping over a card is a physical action that players take, but the character is either encountering, examining, or searching the deck. I think that encountering is the most appropriate of the actions that the power should relate to. Also, I think that discarding a weapon with the Bow trait could be improved to succeeding at a Perception check of # (something moderately difficult, but achievable, at 4, but easier at 6, so not tied to the scenario or monster adventure deck level – nominally 8, but this number needs more rigor before it is finalized). So I would adjust it to something like:
“When another character encounters a monster, you may succeed at a Perception 8 check to move.”
Two notes on the power. First, and this applies to both the original and my suggested version, the power isn’t limited to a character at “your” or “another” location, so it enables Shalelu to move in a way that she can either support the combat or avoid negative effects (or both). The two roles suggest opposite uses of this power. For the Lone Wolf role, this concept might be applied to the evade power (though it would require some tweaking). For the Ambusher role, this concept would work as-is because of the other powers (supporting fire from either the same location or another location). More defined role differentiation might drive towards the Ambusher role focusing on supporting from the same location (enabled by the suggested version I provided above, if you want to do that, or some other variation). The second note is that there might be other requirements to move from a location, so you would need to ensure that you follow whatever precedent the FAQ has provided for ensuring things are clear (unless I’m over-thinking this part).
I’ve deliberately provided a potpourri of ideas that you can pick and choose from, or tweak, because I don’t like being overly restrictive in my suggestions.