I think occult stuff can fill in for most psionics myself.
Hi folks. I'm the would-be player of Razan Al-Amin, a Persian-born Syriac Nestorian warrior. His current profile was created from the original recruitment rules. Here is how he might look mechanically in v2:
******************************************************************
World of Xoth human (Civilised, Syriac aka Susrahnite)
Paladin (Virtuous Bravo)-Weapon Champion 12 with Oath of Charity (oath not a free archetype) // Bard (Arcane Duelist, Dervish Dancer) 12
Holy Vindicator 2 // Mystic Theurge 2
VMC Cavalier (Order of the Star)
Mythic Tier 2 - Champion 2 // Guardian 2
******************************************************************
The World of Xoth has some interesting variety for human-only games.
An alternative suggestion for races, from a Diablo 2 game, perhaps with tweaking to allow low- and darkvision:
I feel like that second option from Diablo really makes non humans unnecessary from my perspective. I'm still going to see if that's a deal breaker for other potential players.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Oh hey, Decimus! Didn't see you there. Funny I've GMed two gestalt games for you before. Now maybe we'll play in one.
Yeah I see the desire for pets in a mounted warrior game. Run-of-the-stable combat trained heavy horse isn't quite as fun. XD Maybe something else then? Only one pet/player?
Revised suggestions:
1. One pet/player? Still will be an absolute must to have a pet we won't be tempted to make builds with an animal companion and a familiar, both with gestalt class levels and mythic tiers.
2. Lower starting level so players have a chance to get acclimated to these high power rules. Maybe level 3 or something?
My 2 cents:
- Prefer human only for better immersion into the setting.
- Prefer high level since we're dealing with all sorts of mythic and insanely powerful opponents. Just seems more fun.
- Prefer limited content, mainly because it's just way too much stuff to read. I'm familiar with all Paizo, psionics, PoW, and SoP personally.
I'd still like to do 6//6 3//3 6cr. Decimals build shows some of the possibilities of exchanging levels between those bins. That's just the default to understand the system.
I'm imaging the characters as the heads of divisions or somewhat experienced. Not generals but not neophytes either. Senchen is a granddaughter of Ghengis Khan.
That's also my feeling about monsters. I have ideas for stuff like rapid dire megafauna rhino precursors with 5,000 hit points. And yes, you will be able to make characters with these rules that can fight that.
Oh hey, Decimus! Didn't see you there. Funny I've GMed two gestalt games for you before. Now maybe we'll play in one.
Yeah I see the desire for pets in a mounted warrior game. Run-of-the-stable combat trained heavy horse isn't quite as fun. XD Maybe something else then? Only one pet/player?
Revised suggestions:
1. One pet/player? Still will be an absolute must to have a pet we won't be tempted to make builds with an animal companion and a familiar, both with gestalt class levels and mythic tiers.
2. Lower starting level so players have a chance to get acclimated to these high power rules. Maybe level 3 or something?
I'm open to discussing lower levels but it seems we may have enough who want to start higher.
I think the real area it would be helpful to limit stuff is some of the really extensive third-party systems like spheres. I think the rogue genius and legendary games versions of the core classes are flexible enough to do most character ideas.
It's a bin of template creatures you have. It can also be exchanged for levels. Decimus is planning on looking at my house rules document next weekend. I can probably have the finalized build rules next week.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Ok sounds cool. I'm interested. I'll start working on concepts and then move toward build.
@Decimus: Do I understand correctly from looking at your archetypes that you won't be mass buffing with inspire courage, etc? I'm trying to think about what roles, e.g. buffer, I'd be interested in filling.
@GM: I'm imagining that we should try to keep our characters relatively human for the sake of flavor and social interactions? E.g. the lich template might be a bit of a turnoff... Also, can we take negative templates to free up room for other templates?
sounds good! Also look into the archetype stacking thing. I saw that it said archetypes would stack instead of replacing class features, which seems like people can just take all the archetypes they want.
You can stack 2 only.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
What do people think of an Oracle Medium? Kinda really playing up the ghost of her ancestors and such.
1. Is there a limit on how many ability score boosts you can get from templates? Loads of templates add +4 to an ability score so one could easily have +24 to an ability score thanks to templates.
2. Two archetypes per character or two archetypes per class?
3. What's your interpretation of "Each time you successfully hit a foe in combat with a weapon attack not augmented by a spell (such as true strike or greater greater magic weapon)" from the battle mage feat? If an attack roll is boosted by bless or any of the MANY spells that boost attack rolls, is it then ineligible for battle mage? Because that makes the feat dead on arrival but makes sense since it is WAY good otherwise.
4. Question about keeping characters mostly human listed above.
I'm on the Human only side of things too, when it comes to race.
Also, @hustonj: man, Arcanis. I haven't played that in a while.
Since you re looking at a 3.x/PF cross rules-wise, how do you plan to deal with rule differences?
It could be anything from a spell having changed levels/effects, a Barbarian's attribute bonuses being morale or not, or weapons gaining/losing key words/capabilities.
Got me considering going digging for my old 3.x Shattered Empires stuff from Paradigm Concepts.
I'll have to look at it on a case by case basis. I've integrated several different systems together and I've made different decisions. Give me the thing you want to use and I'll decide how it works.
** spoiler omitted **
Ability scores will be very high.
2 archetypes per class.
I think we'll stick with humans at this point. But certain templates make no sense clearly.
I'll have to research the last point.
@caster4life, even if you could stack templates, you’d be doing it at the cost of one side of the gestalt, right? I mean, I guess no one would beat your DCs though lol.
No the templates are additional bin. Let me go ahead and throw up a recruitment thread since there seems to be enough interest and ill try to give examples of everything that make it clearer.
Cool! This will be fun. Given that power will be very high pretty much no matter what, I'm going to reduce my decision paralysis by focusing on a fun concept rather than whatever seems "strongest." I'm curious to see the recruitment thread and know our point buy, etc.
Maybe potential PCs can plan a little? Teamwork feats are super fun and can be amazing, especially when we have so many feats to play with.
1. Sechen's Oracle/Medium: Sounds like a cool buffer that could do some other stuff too. What do you have in mind?
2. Decimus: Sounds like melee striker/tank? Will you be popping out an inspire courage from time to time since your archetype doesn't take it away with these rules?
I could see myself doing
A. Wizard/alchemist: Knowledge checks, some face, arcane battlefield control and ranged damage
B. Inquisitor/Zen archer: Ranged damage and scouting
C. Monk x/Paladin 2+Rogue X-2: Mobile melee striker and tank
I'm willing to consider it.
I'm open to looking at that. I'm visiting my parents right now so I don't have access to all my files on my desktop. Let me get a proper recruitment thread up in the next couple of days and I think that will clarify a lot of things.
I think it will also be better if we can focus on paizo material bc there are good optimization guides for all that stuff. I get the appeal of spheres and psionics. I made a troubadour character in the last year and there are some neat subsystems. Still, I think most build ideas can be accomplished with the paizo classes, the talented versions which allow more leeway with class ability selection, and archetypes and templates. Like I'm pretty sure a troubadour equivalent can be made with a vigilante.
I'm not going to make an absolute rule, but I want everyone to at least try to not use spheres or dreamscarred stuff and seen if you can do what you want. There's a lot of stuff for the base classes that I think gets overlooked.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
And before we'd start I want to have a review where we realistically assess each characters role and stuff like comparable damage output. I don't want to start with pcs wildly out of balance. There will be an opportunity to correct issues to power up pcs that seem not in line with the others.
A review and evening up power sounds great. So does trying to stick with paizo stuff, for the most part.
1. What's your interpretation of "Each time you successfully hit a foe in combat with a weapon attack not augmented by a spell (such as true strike or greater greater magic weapon)" from the battle mage feat? If an attack roll is boosted by bless or any of the MANY spells that boost attack rolls, is it then ineligible for battle mage? Because that makes the feat dead on arrival but makes sense since it is WAY good otherwise.
2. Do you allow the sacred geometry feat? Very, very good stuff.
3. Can a single template be taken more than once and stack with itself? Obviously some things don't stack, like 60 ft darkvision unless it says it adds to existing darkvision. But what about untyped bonuses to ability scores, etc?
1. I still have to look at this. I usually adopt the most liberal or permissive interpretation when it's unclear, so probably.
2. Yes.
3. I hadn't thought of that but sure.
Would you be willing to allow us to use our templates on companions?
Yes you make the companions exactly like a pc. It's like making a second character.
If you're asking if you can transfer them, there's no need. They have their own.
Great, thanks! Sorry I didn't realize that was what you were responding to when you said that same thing earlier.
Regarding pets: Ok so they are built like PCs. How do their race and ability scores function? Do they get to wield weapons and magic items, etc? I'm confused whether or not my rabbit familiar would be able to be a paladin with a greatsword, for example...
If they don't have opposable thumbs that's clearly a limitation. You'd have to have a howdah with blades or something. Awakened animals have existed like this in published sources. See the awakened whale druid from the Razing of Redshore in Dungeon.
@All: To clarify, Razan is at his core a paladin//bard heavily focused on movement and offense. More on this below. The cavalier bit is just in variant multiclassing.
Also, I've found Weirdo's Guide to Gestalts very useful indeed. It lays out solid points on general gestalt synergy and more specific points on individual pair-ups.
And before we'd start I want to have a review where we realistically assess each characters role and stuff like comparable damage output. I don't want to start with pcs wildly out of balance. There will be an opportunity to correct issues to power up pcs that seem not in line with the others.
Great idea! These rules can lead to some incredible combinations of abilities.
Ok sounds cool. I'm interested. I'll start working on concepts and then move toward build.
@Decimus: Do I understand correctly from looking at your archetypes that you won't be mass buffing with inspire courage, etc? I'm trying to think about what roles, e.g. buffer, I'd be interested in filling.
@GM: I'm imagining that we should try to keep our characters relatively human for the sake of flavor and social interactions? E.g. the lich template might be a bit of a turnoff... Also, can we take negative templates to free up room for other templates?
Cool! This will be fun. Given that power will be very high pretty much no matter what, I'm going to reduce my decision paralysis by focusing on a fun concept rather than whatever seems "strongest." I'm curious to see the recruitment thread and know our point buy, etc.
Maybe potential PCs can plan a little? Teamwork feats are super fun and can be amazing, especially when we have so many feats to play with.
1. Sechen's Oracle/Medium: Sounds like a cool buffer that could do some other stuff too. What do you have in mind?
2. Decimus: Sounds like melee striker/tank? Will you be popping out an inspire courage from time to time since your archetype doesn't take it away with these rules?I could see myself doing
A. Wizard/alchemist: Knowledge checks, some face, arcane battlefield control and ranged damage
B. Inquisitor/Zen archer: Ranged damage and scouting
C. Monk x/Paladin 2+Rogue X-2: Mobile melee striker and tank
Hi Caster! I intend Razan as a holy warrior, a defender of the Church of the East but also of Christians and people of good character that he runs across. Mainly focused on blindingly fast movement and attacks. Getting dimension door through bard allows me to take the entire dimensional feat tree, which I plan to. He can do bardic inspiration but it's at most a secondary concern for him. I'm not sure I'll even take feats to boost the bardic stuff tbh, focusing instead on movement, offense, and defense. That said, teamwork feats can be cool. Coordinated Charge, Intercept Charge, or Paired Opportunists could be lovely.
What do people think of an Oracle Medium? Kinda really playing up the ghost of her ancestors and such.
I'm down with that!
I'm going to try to update the original campaign page with all the build rules and then start an official recruitment thread tomorrow or Friday.
Another thing about setting - the legendary explanations are real. Historically I think academics now agree the Mongol Empire was a slightly ad hoc result of trading disputes, not a planned conquest that we imagine. However the secret history of the mongols says Tengri told Ghengis to bring all lands under one sword. Here the latter is literally what happened. The Mongol gods got together and told Ghengis to conquer the world.
Maybe potential PCs can plan a little? Teamwork feats are super fun and can be amazing, especially when we have so many feats to play with.1. Sechen's Oracle/Medium: Sounds like a cool buffer that could do some other stuff too. What do you have in mind?
I do plan to have Sechen be a buffer/debuffer. The fluff of her character being that she summons the ancestors of her family to strengthen her allies and herself. She would be what is commonly thought of as a shaman. She beats a spirit drum, and communes with spirits to foresee the outcome and hopefully change it.
Thanks for the clarifications, Decimus!
caster's submission in progress here. Still plenty to work on but I've decided to build a wizard x/(alchemist x-1&magus 1) focused on battlefield control, debuffing, and damage.
I took the name, but not the nickname, from a badass historical figure. I wish Paizo had a greater ethnic diversity in its avatar choices but I found one I can be happy with. Since gunpowder was an emerging technology when the mongols were expanding, I'm flavoring her bombs (big part of the build) as gunpowder technology she's constantly tinkering with and extracts as herbal mixtures from tribal medicine. Her arcane magic I'll probably flavor as shamanistic, animistic, or both.
GM: Though it seems women had more power in the expanding Mongol Empire than most other nations at the time, they still weren't commonly fighting on the front lines. Will our setting include that aspect, such that it is strange for Altani to feature prominently in battle? Just thinking about what would work/not make sense for her personality, attitude, etc.
I'm honestly going to be a bit looser about some of those historical elements and have gender roles something more like the popular image in that book about the Mongol queens by the guy who wrote Ghengis Khan and the creation of the modern world.
I'm also going to be a bit anachronistic about some of the bukhara architecture, like having neat post Mongol buildings a few centuries earlier. Some of the iconic stuff in the bazaar is after the siege. I'm also just going to have to make up some stuff there's not a lot of info about by hypothesizing from similar models. In general this is going to be a setting where the crazy inaccurate numbers of combatants and dead and other such demographics in period chronicles are actually real.
I absolutely love Ghengis Khan, and the Mongols. He is my favorite historical conqueror along with Vlad Tepes, of course.
I actually have a concept that could work here, but I wouldn't be ready any time soon. I don't want to really join any new games until I at least finish updating my PCs for Dark Sun and Rise.
Sure thing, GM. I'm not going to be any sort of stickler for historical accuracy, especially in a high-powered fantasy game.
Interest dot. Hoping I can manage to grasp the multiplicity of stuff you're using -- and then coax Hero Lab into letting me build in it. Initial instinct is for a 'classic'(ish) horse archer -- probably a Zen Archer Unchained Monk (I use the Purple Duck Games version of the archetype) solid on one side, with a few odds and ends on the other.
While I see the 'free archetype' thing, I will confess that I have a couple of class thoughts that actually use three archetypes for it -- and for which I'd be more than willing to surrender at least 2 if not all 3 archetype-removing stuff from. Thoughts on allowing that?
Ref: the races thing, a suggestion -- players select races, but everyone is 'human', just of a particular bloodline or a strict training regimen. I personally would like to have access to the Advanced Race Guide (ARG), because I have an admittedly advanced 'human' race I'd love to use, but I can do without ... ;)
Pyure human
Type: Humanoid (Human; 0 RP)
Size: Medium (0 RP)
Base Speed: Normal (0 RP)
Ability Score Modifiers: Advanced (+2 to Physical, +4 to Wisdom, -2 to Charisma; 4 RP)
Languages: Linguist (1 RP)
Racial Traits:
. Feat and Skills: Flexible Bonus Feat (4 RP), Skilled (4 RP)
. Movement: Fast (x2, +20 to base movement, 3 RP)
. Senses: See in Darkness (4 RP)
-------------------
For this game, the Pyure might be a particular caste or house of nobility, Mongol or otherwise.
Or, perhaps, allow up to 20-point ARG race builds (for Advanced, but not Monstrous, races), but they all have to take the human defaults of Linguist (1 RP), Flexible Bonus Feat (4 RP), and Skilled (4 RP), and have at least one attribute in which they receive a +2 ...
Interest dot. Hoping I can manage to grasp the multiplicity of stuff you're using -- and then coax Hero Lab into letting me build in it. Initial instinct is for a 'classic'(ish) horse archer -- probably a Zen Archer Unchained Monk (I use the Purple Duck Games version of the archetype) solid on one side, with a few odds and ends on the other.
While I see the 'free archetype' thing, I will confess that I have a couple of class thoughts that actually use three archetypes for it -- and for which I'd be more than willing to surrender at least 2 if not all 3 archetype-removing stuff from. Thoughts on allowing that?
Ref: the races thing, a suggestion -- players select races, but everyone is 'human', just of a particular bloodline or a strict training regimen. I personally would like to have access to the Advanced Race Guide (ARG), because I have an admittedly advanced 'human' race I'd love to use, but I can do without ... ;)
** spoiler omitted **
Or, perhaps, allow up to 20-point ARG race builds (for Advanced, but not Monstrous, races), but they all have to take the human defaults of Linguist (1 RP), Flexible Bonus Feat (4 RP), and Skilled (4 RP), and have at least one attribute in which they receive a +2 ...
Advanced race guide is fine. Did you see the Diablo option above?
I don't understand your archetype question.
Let me try to revamp the campaign page with the new build rules and start a proper recruitment thread tomorrow. I think some questions are bc I wrote up the rules quickly above but if I organize and explain them a bit more fully I think some things might be answered.
Yeah, though I have to admit, being able to have better-than-standard night-sight is a major draw for me. (Which is why 'See in Darkness' on the pyure human. ;) ) Regarding the archetype thing, I realized that I wouldn't need it anyhow -- the 'stack of three' I was concerned about was a Swashbuckler build using inspired blade, noble fencer, and veiled blade. Not entirely appropriate ... though I /am/ hunting for a good horse-archer sort. A reskinned Samurai, perhaps ...
Hey Seb, I was going to make this suggestion elsewhere, but since it seems specifically fitting to this game, here we go:
What do you think about all players, for all your games, receiving the Hybrid HOPF for free? Ie, it doesn't cost them one of their HOPF slots?
For this game, this would allow all PCs to be human as their base race, but as our Wyrmy friend said above, would also allow different 'bloodlines'. You could of course limit the races to a specific RP cost, to prevent the use of the more powerful races.
For the other Lokifinder games, this would give each PC a more unique character, while also boosting the racial 'power' of each race in a simple, elegant style.
Select a second race. You gain all of the racial traits of that race in addition to your primary race. You count as a member of both races for the purposes of any prerequisites.
Special: This horrifically overpowered feat usually has to be taken at 1st level. Although maybe you were in some sort of weird reincarnate accident or something.
I we can try that for this game. I don't want to make any more changes to the others right now. I think everyone is burned out on rules tinkering.