The Free Kingdoms

[Bjorn]

Swift actions kinda are core, in that they're in the SRD. It's basically a free action that you can only take on your turn and you only get one per round.

... Stuff's in the SRD that isn't in the core books?  Urg.  That hadn't even occurred to me.

Okay.  Changing the rules summat.  Anything in the core SRD is OK.  I will still probably automatically check my books as first reference, so if something's in the SRD, feel free to tell me.

Sorry about the grief, Eb.  It wasn't an attempt to nerf your class, I just didn't know what they were.

[Ebiris]

Off the top of my head, the main changes in the SRD compared to the books is the inclusion of swift and immediate actions, and various minor errata, as well as huge changes to all the polymorph style effects.

[Dracos]

Also some UA style varient rules and crap.  usually marked "VARIANT "X"".

The SRD though is awesome for ease of use.

[Dracos]

Okay, I've talked with dune and eb a bit.  Haven't reached the others.  Sort of a rough of where I'm thinking of going with my character.

I'm a halfling merchant, varying between 40 and 60 years old (the middle age conversion rather hurts with all even scores so really have to think about it, I originally thought halflings lived 200ish years instead of 100, when I came up with the concept).  A member of a rebellious secret society dedicated to returning to the glory days of Fars Ia.  A strongly conservative and fairly extremist halfling group that works diligently and secretly against the spread of magic to non-halflings, against the Empire Under Heaven, and with a general agenda of forging a new homeland in Brindia from the inside and turning it into a new Fars Ia.  Most of the group has considerable magical capabilities, though not all, and many of them appear as any halfling you might meet.  Obviously, there are no members of this group that are not halflings.  While there are many (most) who feel favorably towards the Brindians for their aid, the secret society sees it of no merit.  None not of Fars Ia can truly be trusted with magic.  The schools of wizardry are foolhardy and invite more disaster by spreading the teachings to those who would abuse it.  The quest for enlightenment must involve the removal of those who would utilize it to destroy those wishing to study.  To this end, the society will go to any reach to form a safe haven for halfling-kind as well as perpetrate the destruction of any other magic users and particularly Empire Under Heaven.  For the most part, I play my role as a merchant and now, these past two years, as a fighter in our troop, my primary responsibility within the society both the passing of messages throughout the country in an untracable fashion and the raising of resources for the society.  Foreseeing that the increase in demand for warriors would quickly raise the rates for mercenary tasks and generally not interfere with doing trade on the side, I took up that profession alongside to reach my goals.  In specific though, when an opportunity to do something to advance this (whether assisting others in overtaking a city, bribing officials to limit non-halfling trade or magic study, assassinating foreign commanders, inciting war between the enemies of Fars Ia etc) comes into the picture, I'll generally take it.  My skills in stealth and deception are how I tend to keep this separate from my comrades and from my public profession as a trader/mercenary.

Personality wise, open friendly, hard at bargaining.  A very casual person outside of work.

Interests: Thoughts from the others, making sure this doesn't clash too much with Bjorn's thoughts.

I think this gives me a pretty solid agenda/motivation set that can be long lasting throughout the campaign, have definitive points of success and failure over it, and come into play in dramatic fashion during it.  I'll probably pick up a good deal of merchantry, disguise, and stealth skills to back it up.  I won't be picking up assassin most likely, but who knows.  I may take a level in wizard or fighter sometime but who knows.  I'll probably have a knack for little magic trinkets but then D&D is horrible for that, so I might not.  Personally aiming for a bow of shock/ice/flame (THE TRINITY) and a moderately enchanted chainshirt with some shadow/silent move stuff on it before delving into rings of mental protection and trinkets of charm person and such.  Also hopefully some manner of prop merchantry to go on, trading knicknacks and funneling money back to my society.  I might pick up one level of wizard for charm, but probably not since it really would be better  to do that through some knicknack.

Also more for brian and dune probably, but: If I'm going into such trinkets and fun merchant things as a theming, suggestions are welcome.  I like keeping a list to keep an eye out for obviously (and as just a general helper/wishlist thing).  But I didn't see a whole lot in the sub 3000 gp range for knicknacks of amusement/Charm.  Might have to create some.

[Merc]

The hexblade is a class I haven't seen played before (Not surprising, most splat classes are never played).  It's basically a fighter/sorcerer with a wussy spell progression (emphasis on wussy) starting at level 6, almost no bonus feats, some decent magic protection, and primarily a hex that applies a -2 to to virtually everything for one hour on one foe (Getting a bit better with levels but not for a while).  It also has good will saves rather than fort saves.  Oh and they don't get to use medium or heavy armor.

I'd probably describe it more as an arcane version of a paladin who fights dirty instead of well-armored and is motivated by selfishness instead of selflessness. He doesn't add new mechanics, just has abilities that point in a different path than a paladin's selflessness.

Instead of a mount, he gets a familiar. Instead of smite, he gets a curse ability. Instead of remove disease, he gets a limited use 20% cover aura and a few spellcasting bonus feats. Instead of knowledge (royalty) and sense motive, he gets intimidate and bluff. Instead of good fort, he gets good will. And instead of lay on hands and divine health, he gets mettle (aka evasion for fort/will instead of reflex). He still gets charisma bonus to saves.

He is essentially on same power scale as a paladin, mechanics-wise, maybe just a little lower since he uses spontaneous casting (and thus has limited number of spells known). Background-wise, it is essentially a sorceror who self-taught himself to fight melee instead of focusing on gaining more magical powers.

If you are against the concept, or would rather not download a book just for a class, then I guess I can play a wizard of some sort.

[Bjorn]

Added setting details (which will become relevant directly): Sorcery isn't spontaneously developed casting in this setting.  All arcane magic users must learn to manipulate magic directly.  While wizards then learn how to manipulate small amounts of magic to prepare a triggerable, self-powering magical construct ("memorization"), sorcerers instead teach themselves to manipulate magic directly to achieve their desired ends.  Wizardry is safer, in that it requires the personal manipulation of much smaller amounts of raw magic, and the common "building block" approach of constructs in prepared spells means that it's very easy to pick up new spells.  But learning the constructs is a process that requires a lot of study, how to put them together even more, and devising new ones even more yet, since they are very abstract objects.  Once you've learned how to manipulate magic, it's much easier to simply try and make it do what you want directly.  Of course, it's more taxing, which puts a limit on how much sorcery you can do in a day, and figuring out how to get the magic to do what you want sometimes leads to disaster.  Until a few human experimenters proved otherwise, Fars Ian wizards were of the opinion that sorcery was impossible, as a) no one could learn to channel enough magic directly to accomplish anything meaningful, b) you could easily kill yourself if you attempted to handle too much, and c) you'd probably die trying to figure things out anyway.  They were wrong.

(Sorcerers killing themselves, blowing things up learning magic, etc. is just fluff.  You are heroes, and heroes don't cut their story short by learning a magic spell wrong.)

I'd probably describe it more as an arcane version of a paladin who fights dirty instead of well-armored and is motivated by selfishness instead of selflessness. He doesn't add new mechanics, just has abilities that point in a different path than a paladin's selflessness.

Thematically, the hexblade seems (not surprisingly) to be built around his curse ability.  The problem is incorporating that into the setting.  The two most logical ideas to me are either corruption by the Waste, or a mishap in learning sorcery  -- something that severely damaged your ability to manipulate magic, but at the same time leads to an aura of bad luck.  Do you have ideas?

If you are against the concept, or would rather not download a book just for a class, then I guess I can play a wizard of some sort.

I've looked at it, and it seems well-balanced.  I'm also beginning to suspect that splat might have to be included to get anyone to take up a warrior class at all.  I guess at this point my only hesitation is thematic; if you can flex out the sort of person you want your hexblade to be (and why it needs to be a hexblade, and not a fighter/sorcerer or rogue/sorcerer), then we can work on that.

[Bjorn]

Okay, I've talked with dune and eb a bit.  Haven't reached the others.  Sort of a rough of where I'm thinking of going with my character.

Various thoughts:

I'll look at lifespans for the various races.  Off-hand, though, I was thinking about 70-80 years for humans and hobgoblins, 100-120 for halflings and goblins, 300 or so for dwarves, 50-60 for kobolds, and 2000-5000 for elves.  For the concept you're going for, I'd think that you'd want someone in the range of 20-40, born some time after the Wasting War, though.

Secret society idea is great.  Fars Ia was built on trade, though, and Brindia was a major trading partner and ally, so a completely dismissive attitude doesn't fit well.  On the other hand, they might well take the attitude that's there lots of space for humans to live, and if they want to stick around in a new Fars Ia, well, we can likely rule them better than they would get anyway.

A level of wizard would be a good idea, I think.  It seems to me that's how the secret society would tend to pick up most of its recruits, halflings in the academies who seemed to resent rubbing elbows with the humans and dwarves.  Of course, you could just have dropped out after not showing much talent, or been recruited from family connections or something, so it all works.

Mercenary work isn't very profitable.  People think it is, since mercenaries tend to be boisterous and live large, cost a lot, and there's always the stories of finding some long-lost treasure on a dangerous mission.  By and large, though, the broker takes most of the money and mercenaries that aren't prudent end up with little to show at the end of their career.  On the other hand, trading is getting less profitable with every year, especially in Brindia.  So your general idea is very reasonable, but your character might be a little bitter and disillusioned. ;)

[Dracos]

I was wavering on that simply because (unlike second eds dual class setup) a level is a pretty costly expenditure for background purposes and doesn't seem like it'd add very much in terms of interesting role playing considerations, but rereading over the level 1 wizard  stuff, I might just do it though, a familiar that is still advancing won't be a total deadweight and can be its own amusing little addition, I can do some occassionally neat things with level zero spells, and even if its only one spell a day, some of the level one spells are interesting.  (I was originally most worried under the '1 spell?  That's not even really parlor trick level.  And all of them will end up listing casting level as an important thing).

But hey, why not, some wizardry with my roguery and my merchantry.

We talked about it a bit and I'll likely write  up the society when I get a chance along with a character draft.

[Anastasia]

I'll be working on a character Sunday, I won't have anything solid until then. Are we going to have a party leader like I heard tossed around? Merc and I were discussed as possibilities, and if the onus ends up on me, I'd like to know and design my PC's setup accordingly.

[Bjorn]

I'll be working on a character Sunday, I won't have anything solid until then. Are we going to have a party leader like I heard tossed around? Merc and I were discussed as possibilities, and if the onus ends up on me, I'd like to know and design my PC's setup accordingly.

This is up to you guys.  My planned story begins with the PCs as members of a somewhat experienced Free Company.  Ideally, at least one of you would be a long-term member of the Free Company.  If only one of you is, then that person would be head of the Company and the other characters would be recent hires.  If several of you are, then it does not matter to me how you manage the Free Company -- party leader, democratic votes, shares, what have you.  If none of you want to be long-term members of the Company, then I'll create an NPC company leader.  This is really not a great idea.

[Dracos]

I'd like someone to be leader and to play bookkeeper to it, having been in it for a year or so.

Going to set up a forum shortly.

Also for Bjorn, might want to think about how powering up items plays in (if at all) to the game world.  I find its often a nice character builder 'iff' there's a viable way (and particularly if said viable way doesn't necessarily include gathering up and converting a bunch of items to raw cash first, but it usually does), since then things  gotten early still are valuable later, and indeed can get their own little story stuff around them.

[Ebiris]

Any limitation on how much of our starting gold we can spend on any one item?

Also, at 4th level I get to add 1 additional cleric/wizard necromancy spell to my spell list. Unfortunately, DN's already get all the core ones of 1st and 2nd level, so I need to look further afield. The one I'd like to get is Kelgore's Grave Mist, which is on page 117 of Player's Handbook II, except perhaps slightly modified for ease of use.

It's a 2nd level spell that creates a 20 foot radius mist for 1 round/level that does 1d6 cold damage per round to anything within and causes fatigue. It has some somewhat odd mechanics in its interaction with spell resistance (failing to beat SR means you still do damage but the fatigue is negated). For simplicity I'd suggest just changing it so the damage is unavoidable, but a fort save negates the fatigue.

[Dracos]

Weird spell effect.  Kind of powerful, yet kind of impotent.  Fatigue is brutal in battle, but then so is sleep and stuff, and that's avaliable at a lower level.  It does area damage, but compared to the first core spell that does, the damage is so pathetic as to be unnoticible, and for damage dealing, magic missile at a lower level is pretty much as good and better with time.

[Bjorn]

Any limitation on how much of our starting gold we can spend on any one item?

Yes.  If I look at your item list and see something game-breakingly powerful, we will have words.

Other than that, no.  Again, I am trying to trust you guys to be as sane as possible.

Also, at 4th level I get to add 1 additional cleric/wizard necromancy spell to my spell list. Unfortunately, DN's already get all the core ones of 1st and 2nd level, so I need to look further afield. The one I'd like to get is Kelgore's Grave Mist, which is on page 117 of Player's Handbook II, except perhaps slightly modified for ease of use.

It's a 2nd level spell that creates a 20 foot radius mist for 1 round/level that does 1d6 cold damage per round to anything within and causes fatigue. It has some somewhat odd mechanics in its interaction with spell resistance (failing to beat SR means you still do damage but the fatigue is negated). For simplicity I'd suggest just changing it so the damage is unavoidable, but a fort save negates the fatigue.

The spell is fine.  Let's stick to the the base rules for it to start.  The fluff is obviously that it's a supernatural chill, which is why it prompts fatigue so quickly.  On a design level, the terrible damage indicates the fatigue is the major effect, and that means it's designed to cripple melee characters.  Making resistance to the fatigue effect based on a Fort save means that the characters it is principally designed to affect are the ones who are most resistant to it.  If anything, I'd have it based on a Will save, but let's see how it goes first.

Question, though.  Does the fatigue automatically wear off at spell's completion, or does it still require eight hours of rest to negate?

[Ebiris]

I plan on getting a cloak of charisma +2. Since I have a cha of 15 and it's my primary casting stat, I don't think it's unreasonable.

As for the fatigue, it lasts as long as normal fatigue - considering most enemies will get killed within a few rounds anyway, I don't think that's a big deal. A fort save seems to make the most sense for resisting tiredness - the vast majority of necromantic effects require fort saves, anyway.