Soulriders 5.0: Legend of the Unending Games

For chatter, questions, coordination or anything else. If you need somewhere to talk something over here you go.

First question: Any idea what you guys are going to play yet?

Human cleric/ranger. Possibly taking fey heritage feats for fun.

Human. A sorc on the one side and working towards Divine Crusader on the other, following Ilmater and doing the healing/punching thing. Vow of Poverty!

First ruling: Cor can take human paragon before level six. It's not really a PrC and it's designed to be taken at any level.

It seems that the best way to get where I want to be is a mix of paladin and human paragon, adding in a bit of monk to handle that punching thing. Would I need to worry over being allowed to advance in paladin afterwards if I leave it for the paragon or the monk for a level?

No, feel free to go back and forth. That rule's one I never cared for.

Metamagic Specialist, PHB2 p62. Why does the sorc feature go off Int, anyway? Also, I considered taking it since the Vow of Poverty doesn't let me get a familiar. Am I right in that?

EDIT: A question about the Intuitive Attack exalted feat. Does it affect touch attacks and/or grapple?

I'd say it's int + 3 because you're acting all wizard-y. It's not a good reason as designed, I'd have made it charisma times or day or house-ruled sorcerers, but that's another thing altogether.

Vow of Poverty doesn't directly stop you from having a familiar, though the 100 GP of components is an issue.  RAW you can expend XP to compensate for expensive components.  It's a 1-5 trade, so you'd spend 20 XP for this. Since we don't use XP this is a little trickier. I'd normally assess you a monetary value to compensate for XP costs, but this make no sense with VoP. In this case I'll just waive the price, in game if something like this comes up I'll deal with it another way.

Intuitive attack works with those.

Yuth was asking about Air Genasi. I have no problem with them but I'd like to avoid LA in a gestalt game. The two just don't mix very well, you know? So I dropped it to +0 LA and removed the +2 intelligence bonus from the class. This brings it closer in line with the high end of LA+0 like aasimar.

You said to ask you if there were feats that allow to combine class features and do something cool beyond that. I'm asking about http://dnd.savannahsoft.eu/feat-127-ascetic-mage.html and whether it is eligible. It does four things: allow multiclassing between sorc and monk if your alignment is retained, which isn't an issue; stack sorc/monk levels for the monk AC bonus; sacrifice a spell to give a bonus to attack/damage that round, Arcane Strike-lite style; use Cha instead of Wis for the monk's AC bonus.

I'd allow the arcane-lite strike and using charisma in place of wis for the AC bonus as a toned down feat. The multiclassing is irrelevant and I won't allow the sorc/monk stacking for the monk AC bonus.

Yuth had some questions to me in PM. I'm going to answer them here for the sake of reference.

QuoteWill you enforce the rule where monks cannot benefit from their AC bonuses if they carry a medium or heavy load?

Yes.  I'm not an encumbrance freak, so as long as you're not carrying something obviously heavy for you I'm not likely to crack down.

Quote2. I have bonus feats from both the fighter and monk classes. The bonus feats for fighter are broad, while the monk feats are restricted to a choice between two feats (such as deflect arrows and combat reflexes). Shall I take both sets of bonus feats, or only one?

These bonus feats are class features. You get all the class features from your classes in gestalt, so you get both the fighter and monk bonus feats. So at level one you get a fighter bonus feat and the normal monk bonus feats for that level.

QuoteDoes the Flurry of Blows class feature for monks benefit from the increased BAB from the fighter class?

Yes. In particular, read from: http://www.d20srd.org/srd/classes/monk.htm#flurryofBlows , it states the following:

QuoteWhen unarmored, a monk may strike with a flurry of blows at the expense of accuracy. When doing so, she may make one extra attack in a round at her highest base attack bonus, but this attack takes a -2 penalty, as does each other attack made that round. The resulting modified base attack bonuses are shown in the Flurry of Blows Attack Bonus column on Table: The Monk. This penalty applies for 1 round, so it also affects attacks of opportunity  the monk might make before her next action. When a monk reaches 5th level, the penalty lessens to -1, and at 9th level it disappears. A monk must use a full attack action to strike with a flurry of blows.

You don't need to pay attention to the table attached to monk, this assumes pure monk levels at medium BAB. A flurry is resolved as a full attack with an extra attack in exchange for a penalty to hit. In other words, treat a flurry of blows as a normal full attack with the stated penalty and the extra attack at full BAB. Notice these conditions change as you gain monk levels.

Quote4. Will you be using the rule of Flat-Footed
A character who has not yet acted during a combat is flat-footed, not yet reacting normally to the situation. A flat-footed character loses his Dexterity bonus to AC (if any) and cannot make attacks of opportunity.

Yes.

QuoteFurthermore, if a character is flat-footed and carries the Dodge feat, does the feat still apply, or is it negated like the Dexterity bonus?

The dodge bonus to AC is lost whenever a character is flat-footed, as noted in it's description. To quote:

QuoteDodge [General]
Prerequisite: Dex 13
Benefit: You gain a +1 dodge bonus to armor class. This is active at any time you are not flatfooted.
Special: A fighter may select dodge as a fighter bonus feat.

1. How are you guys coming on concepts? I know Cor's looking to play an exalted monk/sorc, while Eb's playing a CN cleric of Auril. How compatible is the party going to be?

2. This goes to everyone but Yuth, as all three of you are playing characters with a code of conduct. Two paladins and one cleric, no less, assuming Merc goes with palabard like discussed. I'd like each of you to choose your deity and write up your own codes of conduct according to the power you serve.  I want these to be guides, not shackles to make you fall at my whim.

As my currently posted sheet hopefully implies, my PC isn't evil at all, but he glows that way to paladin-o-vision and he's entirely devoted to making people swear their souls to an explicitly evil and cruel deity, even if he does so in a friendly and fun manner that actually makes their lives better.

Besides, you can't like, put rules on nature! That's just, like, your opinion man!

Also, when we level up enough, I totally want to make undead minions.

Personally I don't think it's a very paladin-friendly concept, but I'll wait for feedback from the two paladins before I consider scrapping it.

I'd like to hear from Dune on whether he feels an exalted concept compatible with undead minions. I can handle things on the paladin front as long as there's no torture and the like to make Ilmater frown.

Undead minions could be a problem, yes. I have no problem with an exalted character working with a neutral character, but chumming around with undead is a bit much.

I'm not familiar with Ilmater's policy on undead off the top of my head but I can check.

Yes, I am building (or trying to) a paladin of freedom/bard build.

Currently struggling with figuring out how I want to spread my ability scores. I was originally going for Str 17, Dex 11, Con 17, Int 14, Wis 8, Cha 18 to make a combat expertise build, but then I remembered bards get ASF on med/heavy armor and I rolled a 1 on the d10 HP roll.

So now trying to figure out how to move stuff around while keeping the Con 17 and Cha 18.

Do I want to just eat the ASF and wear heavy armor until I can get spellsword 3/mithral/twilight? Wear light armor and go for high dex build/low str?

Try Divine Bard, which gets rid of ASF but makes the casting Wis/Cha-based, so I can't dump Wis? This means no Combat Expertise as I'd have to dump Int instead. It also pretty much goes back to the original paladin casting, which makes me feel like I'm wasting Ko's house-rule.

**

As for undead minions, I'd probably be uncomfortable with them, but as long as they're working to do good, that's fine with me as a paladin of freedom.

http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Initiate_of_Spirituality_%28DnD_Feat%29
How does this feat chain work? Also, you mentioned making new ones, so I wondered if you had any concepts already.

Changing over to Scout/Warlock for fun and friendliness.

*Reads*

Homebrewed stuff, eh?

I have no particular problem with that feat, I'd do it like this:

Initiative of Spirituality [Exalted]
Prerequisite: Cha 13
Benefit: Once per day you can punish undead and evil outsiders. As a standard action you unleash a blast of holy energy around you. This has a radius of 10ft, dealing 3d6 holy damage. A fortitude save (DC 10 + 1/2 character level + charisma modifier) halves the damage.

Quote from: Ebiris on September 10, 2010, 02:44:39 PM
Changing over to Scout/Warlock for fun and friendliness.

Okay.

Roger. I'll ask about the feats from http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/3.5e_Exalted_Feats that interest me right away, then.

Initiate of Justice, Initiate of Honor and Initiate of Humility. Can the latter work with a Vow of Poverty?

Quote from: Corwin on September 10, 2010, 02:51:59 PM
Initiate of Justice, Initiate of Honor and Initiate of Humility. Can the latter work with a Vow of Poverty?

Initiate of Justice: No. You don't buy paladin class features with a feat. I also don't see why you'd do sonic damage with an exalted feat that adds on to smites.

Initiate of Honor: No problem with it, isn't that like Broken One's Sacrifice? http://dnd.savannahsoft.eu/feat-276-broken-one-s-sacrifice.html

Initiate of Justice: Irrelevant. You get most of those benefits with VoP. I'd call those an alternate VoP; if you really want Endurance just select it as a normal feat.

[18:25] <Merc> Oh, one thing. I was thinking of taking the Healing Hymn ACF. It replaces Fascinate, which makes Suggestion/Mass Suggestion class features useless at level 6/18. On Eberron, you're allowed to replace bardic music abilities with bardic music feats (sorta like cleric's domain/devotion trade). Won't matter for a while, but wanted to get your thoughts on that.
[18:27] <Kotono> That's fine, replacing those with something instead of being dead class features is good.
[18:28] <Merc> *nods*
[18:30] <Kotono> What's healing hym do? What book?
[18:30] <Kotono> Hymn. Can't type today.
[18:32] <Merc> Healing Hymn is from Complete Champion, g 47. It adds your ranks in Perform as a bonus to healing spells cast during the duration of the hymn.
[18:32] <Kotono> So 7 ranks in perform would be +7 to CLW, for example?
[18:32] <Merc> Doesn't affect healing from wands and such though.
[18:32] <Merc> Yeah
[18:33] <Merc> It only works on spells cast at the time, so a CLW wand will still do it's boring basic heal.
[18:33] * Kotono nods.
[18:33] <Merc> My lay on hands or CLW spells I cast would be boosted by it though.
[18:33] <Kotono> Sounds fine.
[18:33] <Kotono> Lemme read it for exact functionality.
[18:34] <Merc> I also wanted to take Loresong instead of Bardic Knowledge. That one's from dungeonscape...lemme hunt the page.
[18:34] <Merc> bardic knowledge and bardic knack both struck me as not really appropriate when I'm dumping Int. >.<
[18:34] <Kotono> I genuinely do gotta go. Put all these ACF requests in the odds'n'ends topic and I'll reply a little later.
[18:34] <Kotono> Yes.
[18:35] <Merc> Page 8 of dungeonscape for loresong.
[18:35] <Merc> And yeah, I'll post in odds

Healing Hymn is fine. HOWEVER! It wouldn't affect your lay on hands. It boosts conjuration(healing) spells, while Lay on Hands is a supernatural ability.

Loresong is fine.

Ah, alright. That's fine anyway. I'd rather have healing/buffing oriented flavor stuff for bard side than the 'charm person' type effects of fascinate/suggestion. Go go spammed cure minor wound, I guess?

Also, there's really only two PrCs that interest me (for future), but both have things that would need adapting to take. I'm bringing it up now to see if they're worth adapting, and so I can start focusing build to meet prereqs, whatever they may end up being.

First one is easy, Pious Templar (Comp. Divine, pg 50-51). Problem is spellcasting is wis-based, not cha-based. Alternatives are either making spellcasting cha-based, or making it advance paladin casting. If the second, and you feel a need to slow it down (dead caster levels), that's fine too. Also dunno if you might want to modify prereqs in any way to accomodate changes on the spellcasting side of things. If we keep the True Believer feat, since that allows one to use Relics...does my patron deity have any relics? >_>

Second is more complex, Knight of Sacred Seal (Tome of Magic, pg 54-55). It's mechanically based on combining binder/paladin flavors. The binder side is just that it adds levels in soul binding in the same sense a spellcasting PrC adds spellcasting levels. So that's easy to convert. Most of the class abilities transfer fine just by modifying flavor from binder to paladin stuff. Exception is Level 5's capstone ability, Vestige's Surge, which dunno how that'd work (besides just not taking level and worrying about it). On the prereq side of things, alignment asks for nonchaotic (obviously a problem) and the binder class feature. It also seems otherwise...low, for the power of what you're getting.

Not a huge deal if it's troublesome to adapt them, I don't mind going straight paladin (baring another PrC catching my eye, but those two were the only things to really do so at the moment).

Oh, and I guess I'll mention it now, but on the special mount thing, I'll probably want to take the charging smite ACF, as I'm not a fan of mounted combat.

Check the house rules, Pious Templar has come up before.

I'll read about Knight of the Sacred Seal and get back to you.

Quote from: Anastasia on September 10, 2010, 09:32:34 PM
Check the house rules, Pious Templar has come up before.

Yay.

Just for randomness:
[18:12] <Merc> I am honestly split between Lathander and Alicia for patron deity.
[18:13] <Kotono> Hah, really?
[18:14] <Merc> Yeah, oddly enough.
[18:14] <Kotono> What appeals to you out of each of them"
[18:14] <Kotono> ??
[18:14] <Kotono> Wow, typo hel.
[18:14] <Kotono> Hell.
[18:14] <Kotono> Sigh.
[18:15] <Merc> Heh
[18:18] <Merc> Lathander's dogma resonates well with the bard part, resonating new ideas and such, and I like his general portfolio/domains even if I'm not going cleric. About improving yourself and helping others. Alicia's dogma goes a little more on the perseverence side of things but still similar and feels a bit more focused on justice and knowledge, and the general list of worshippers fits with a bard/paladin as a divine gish.
[18:19] * Kotono nods.
[18:19] <Merc> So yeah, both kinda fit with the mood of the character, and Alicia just has that bonus amusement of connecting to the old game.
[18:19] <Kotono> Both would fit welle nough. Lathander's a popular deity and Balmuria's where Alicia did much of her mortal works so there's a whole lot of connection.
[18:20] <Kotono> Alicia's church is small and she is only a quasi-deity, so her domain list is small. Lathander's is bigger. On the other hand they're well regarded in Balmuria and you'd be well recieved there.
[18:21] <Kotono> The domains part doens't get you too bad, though if you're interested in domains feats you could get stung there down the line.
[18:22] <Kotono> The main thing is the connection with the old game. That's really up to you - I think it's a good connection but I don't wanna force you into it.

Later:
[19:08] <Merc> *snorts* I just realized another reason why I should make my character be a paladin of Alicia. Alicia Reynes - Andrea Redfall. Same initials.
[19:08] <Kotono> Snicker.
[19:08] <Kotono> Good point.

I did later switch from greatsword to falchion -because- I'd decided to go with Alicia as patron. That one's sadly not a coincidence.

How much time has passed since the original campaign and the new one?

Is there a world map?

Are the outlying farming & mining counties named? If so, can we have some of those names?

It looks like it's been a mere 20-26 years since original campaign. World flavor thread shows the Crimson Guard at existing around 393-397 DK, with their game starting at 398 DK as mortals. Sometime after/during 398 DK is when they ascended. We're starting at 424 DK.

As for maps, there did use to be a thread in the old board with maps, and I remember seeing them, but it's curiously empty. Dunno if it's that the image links went dead or what, though.

401 DK was pretty much the time the Guard stopped any involvement on Prime. There are also maps Eb did with Dune before, which I could upload to imageshack or something if they're still relevant.

I'm not sure what's up with the map thread, I'll edit posts and see what the fuck's wrong. Edit: Quick link shows that the links are intact but dead. Since they're hosted SR links I'll talk to Drac about it.

As for small villages? To the south is Parsifal, the largest mining community for the Baronies. Past that I don't label every village and settlement, feel free to add one there to your tastes if you need one for background. Talk to me, we'll make something up.

Quote from: Corwin on September 11, 2010, 01:11:46 PM
401 DK was pretty much the time the Guard stopped any involvement on Prime. There are also maps Eb did with Dune before, which I could upload to imageshack or something if they're still relevant.

Please. The city of Balmuria ones are outdated, as is the map of Malmuth. The map of the Baronies, the Fiefdoms and points west is essentially accurate. Edit since I'm an idiot: I plan to do a new map of the city of Balmuria and the changed areas.

Okay, the maps. First, the ones Dune said were mostly unchanged.

http://img808.imageshack.us/img808/5213/desertmap.gif
http://img822.imageshack.us/img822/8986/kelara.gif
http://img834.imageshack.us/img834/3793/chillander.gif

Next, the maps that Dune said were outdated and need to change, still here for reference. I figure the actual land isn't likely to change, nor the town names, just the political borders.

http://img245.imageshack.us/img245/4669/balmuriamap.gif
http://img836.imageshack.us/img836/8328/malmuthmap.gif
http://img528.imageshack.us/img528/4377/newbalmuria.gif

Now, the legend. Let's orient by the Bay of Sparkling Stars. The relevant map is balmuriamap.gif. Originally, all this and even further to the west, plus the empire in malmuthmap.gif, were all one big happy Malmuthian empire. However, the breakaway north-western provinces established the United Baronies, which we can see in part on balmuriamap.gif (as stated above, they still continue to the west). Eventually, Valandia was annexed to them as the result of a defensive war, and finally, the Malmuthian empire kept on breaking down into its components, what's left of it closing rank around the capital, the metropolis of Malmuth. The United Baronies picked up some of these fragments, while Balmuria itself achieved the status of a free city-state, a pretty much autonomous entity amongst the rest of the United Baronies.

To the west of Balmuria, past the rest of the Baronies, lies the land of the Desert Fiefdoms. Ruled by a Pasha, it is represented upon the desertmap.gif. Further west still, you have the land of Kelara, akin to a princedom and ruled by a council of nobles. It is Alicia's place of birth! Further to the west you get impenetrable jungle; the only known ways to cross it have been via teleportation, or by using a portal. Then, you would reach the isolated western lands where the kingdoms of Kesse, Sanaxt and Evrai stand out, along with a strong dwarven presence. Further exploration west is blocked by the ocean.

To the east of Balmuria you have the Barbarian Lands, a land of wild forests where fey, giants, goblins and followers of Jannath have taken residence. Of particular notice is the unicorn grove, containing the first sighting of unicorns in the known world. Past them still, heading east, is the elven empire of Pallanth. It predates human civilization by a measure of ten thousand years, give or take, having weathered the various calamities that brought humanity down due to a combination of luck and isolation. An enormously vast part of it is taken by the frozen lands of the very east extending all the way to the Amaryl Mountain Range, administered by Lord Chillander. This inhospitable east is pictured on chillander.gif, and the size of the region is such that a mage of above-average skill could teleport from Balmuria to the Citadel of Light, the capital of Pallanth, and could reach anywhere else in the empire with a second teleport, yet would need two such teleports (or the aid of a portal) to get to the edge of Chillander's realm. Incidentally, the port city of Elfsander located on the road from the Citadel and Balmuria is where Seira was born.

Returning briefly to the Desert Fiefdoms, if one would go south from its capital of Arad, they would have one day ran into the Wastes, one of many regions in the world that was utterly ruined by the cataclysmic battles which brought an end to many a civilization that existed two thousand years ago. Pallanth has expanded in that direction, once the reclamation of the Wastes started around 399 DK (the land had to be connected via a portal, as it not contiguous to Pallanth-proper). Another such project was to take place near Malmuth, but with the situation there as it was, said project was indefinitely delayed.

I think this only leaves newbalmuria.gif, which can be used as a guide of how Balmuria used to be some two decades ago. The city surely expanded even further and acquired new sites while some of the olds were replaced.

Things of note: there is a dwarven community in the Galkass mountains by Balmuria, and if one travels underwater for several hours into the Bay of Sparkling Stars, they would chance upon a thriving sea elf village, the closest of such underwater communities to the local human lands.

Weird VoP and Imater-related questions I thought of, however utterly unlikely they are to come up.

Is it a violation to stay in a Magnificent Mansion that I conjured up? That someone else conjured up?

How does an LG deity like Ilmater offer evil spells in his domain slots? For example, the Suffering domain offers a symbol of pain. The domain itself doesn't seem particularly objectionable, so I'm wondering how his clerics deal with this. (yes, I realize they can just pick a different domain spell for the slot, but that's only a mechanic solution, not an explanation for the dogma)

Suggestion for a Houserule!

Do like D20 Modern does and eliminate the Open Lock skill, because a lock is just a device and should therefore be disabled by the Disable Device skill!

1. [13:07] <Yuth-Sick> BTW, those ARE the isolationist elves, right?

2. [13:34] <Yuth-Sick> Also, are they xenophobic or just mistrustful of outsiders?

Quote from: Corwin on September 11, 2010, 03:44:23 PM
Weird VoP and Ilmater-related questions I thought of, however utterly unlikely they are to come up.

Is it a violation to stay in a Magnificent Mansion that I conjured up? That someone else conjured up?

First of all, casting it yourself would be a trick since it requires a 5 GP focus. Ignoring that, it wouldn't be a technical violation of VoP.  The point of the vow is to live with nothing and forgo such pleasures, constantly using a spell like that would violate the spirit of it.

QuoteHow does an LG deity like Ilmater offer evil spells in his domain slots? For example, the Suffering domain offers a symbol of pain. The domain itself doesn't seem particularly objectionable, so I'm wondering how his clerics deal with this. (yes, I realize they can just pick a different domain spell for the slot, but that's only a mechanic solution, not an explanation for the dogma)

I think you're asking two separate things, or asking one thing that's not expressed well. There is a mechanical question and a fluff question. For mechanics, I'd rule that Ilmater can't grant evil magic. It's like Shar granting Holy Aura. It's simply not happening,  no matter how appropriate it might be in a situation. I think the logic they use is that the thematic closeness justifies giving the spell out, though I disagree. A good (exalted good, really) deity simply should not grant evil magic. So you're correct in that the two evil spells would need to be replaced for his suffering domain.

Let me quote Ilmater's dogma from Faiths and Pantheons for the second part of this.

QuoteHelp all that hurt, no matter who they are. The truly holy take on the suffering of others. If you suffer in his name, Ilmater is there to support you. Stick to your cause if it is right, whatever the pain or peril. There is no shame in a meaningful death. Stand up to all tyrants, and allow no injustice to go unchallenged. Emphasize the spiritual nature of life over the existence of the material body.

To the servants of Ilmater, taking on suffering is a holy act. His clergy exist to mitigate the suffering of others and spread relief. Certainly that part makes sense. Then why would he grant his clerics the ability to cause suffering to others? Ilmater is a humble power, but he is not a pacifist. He has granted the tormented and downtrodden powerful magic before to strike their tormentors, as well as sponsoring paladins who fight evil. To his wise servants he grants the heaviest burden of suffering; the ability inflict suffering onto others. A cleric of Ilmater who casts Symbol of Pain does so with a heavy heart. It is an act avoided with all ability and resources, the last resort to stop tyranny and evil. When evil must be stopped with violence, those of Ilmater take on the physical suffering of opposing them in the flesh, then carry the spiritual suffering of the deeds committed in Ilmater's name. Let them be the executioners when no other option avails, so that the just may live without the guilt of bloodstained hands.

Quote from: Ebiris on September 11, 2010, 03:49:37 PM
Suggestion for a Houserule!

Do like D20 Modern does and eliminate the Open Lock skill, because a lock is just a device and should therefore be disabled by the Disable Device skill!

Sure, works for me. I'll add it to the houserules tomorrow assuming no one else has anything to say about it. If anyone does, speak up now.

Quote from: Yuthirin on September 11, 2010, 04:43:39 PM
1. [13:07] <Yuth-Sick> BTW, those ARE the isolationist elves, right?

2. [13:34] <Yuth-Sick> Also, are they xenophobic or just mistrustful of outsiders?

The elves of Pallanth are the isolationist ones. Pallanth is currently undergoing a cultural shift. The elves aren't quite xenophobic, but more mistrustful and mildly convinced of their superiority to humans. Nothing too out of the normal stock. Unlike typical D&D elves they are organized into a medieval society, eschewing the more fey and chaotic tinged aspects of their society.

In the past 20-30 years, Pallanth has allied with the United Baronies. A result of this is an opening of their borders and greater spread of elven society. Meanwhile, the elven pantheon is beginning to act openly in these past twenty years and fey creatures have returned. Much of Pallanth is in the throes of a counter-culture movement, between those who stick to the current society and those who wish to embrace a more fey-styled existence.  It grows stickier with that the Seladrine supports the chaotic-fey view, while a few non-elven powers who have some influence in Pallanth do not. In other words it's complicated. I'll go into this more later when I post the background info about them.

Question four from Merc, Mr. Can't be bothered to post his questions. >_>

Quote<Merc> who's the god of death/rites in Balmuria? Kelemvor? Like, if there's a day you want to mourn for dead family, whose church does one go to? Or would it just be whomever the parents followed?

Kelemvor is the God of the dead. He is currently in a frosty war with Helm, who has encroached onto the portfolio of death with the Well of Souls. Last rites, funerals and graveyards are dealt with by the faith the individual followed. The basic pattern is usually the same - some sort of rites just before or after death, a memorial and then a funeral. The details vary wildly between faiths. Those without faith can make private arrangements into cemeteries. Those who die without faith or without those setups are handled by local authorities. In Balmuria that makes for a pauper's cremation.

If you have interests in the specifics of a particular faith, speak up. (Knowledge: Religion ranks will help!) If you want to get into more specifics about any of this, feel free to follow up.

Reason I was asking was background, that's about it. Parents were traders, so pondered if on their death anniversary I should donate gold to Kelemvor, Waukeen (as their patron), or some other god.

Also, new question! Pious Templar's feat prereq, True Believer, requires one to be within one step alignment of deity. Can this be waived? >_>

And had a chance to look at Knight of Sacred Seal?

Quote from: Merc on September 11, 2010, 08:09:47 PMReason I was asking was background, that's about it. Parents were traders, so pondered if on their death anniversary I should donate gold to Kelemvor, Waukeen (as their patron), or some other god.

Probably Waukeen then. You can decide the exact particulars of their death and internment as you see fit, just run it past me when it's done. Feel free to use this to tie into your backstory or add onto something.

QuoteAlso, new question! Pious Templar's feat prereq, True Believer, requires one to be within one step alignment of deity. Can this be waived? >_>

That's fine. It's not that good a feat anyway unless you have a good relic lined up. Also Alicia was drifting towards NG near the end of Balmuria, so some leniency there is acceptable.

QuoteAnd had a chance to look at Knight of Sacred Seal?

I knew I forgot something. Hold on, I'll post again in a few.

I don't have a big problem with Knight of the Sacred Seal. Tell you what, why don't you homebrew up a changed version and see how it comes out?

Oh, very vital question! What are we doing in this game?

Are we also trying to join the Crimson Guard or Salman Academy, just a random gorup of mercenaries/adventurers being brought together by chance and fate, or whta?

I'm going to be talking to you guys about that a bit down the line once I get my shit in order. It's not the Crimson Guard, I can tell you that much.

I think it would be awesome if I could amend my Code of Conduct from experience next level, as in where I will get LoH and consider myself a true paladin of Ilmater. You know, basically personalize the code I have right now further at that time by adding to it. Can I?

Sure.

Yuth, I read your background. It looks good.

---

Cor, you had some questions about exalted stuff. Could you post them here, since you're on DST now and our times don't sync up very well?

No update today, so instead I'll post an example of a low level threat you might face. This is a little better than a typical 1 HD threat, creeping closer to being CR 1 instead of CR 1/2 or lower.

Gutter Trash Thug (Fighter 1//Rogue 1)

Size/Type: Medium Humanoid (Human)
Hit Dice: 1d10+1 (11 hp)
Initiative: +2
Speed: 30ft
Armor Class: 17 (+2 dex, +4 armor, +1 dodge)
Base Attack/Grapple: +1/+2
Attack: Sap+3 (1d6+1 plus 1d6 sneak attack, nonlethal) or Dagger+3 (1d4+1 plus 1d6 sneak attack 19-20 x2)
Full Attack: -
Space/Reach: 5ft/5ft
Special Attacks: Sneak attack+1d6
Special Qualities: Trapfinding.
Saves: Fort +3, Ref +4, Will -1
Abilities: Str 12, Dex 15, Con 12, Int 8, Wis 8, Cha 8 
Skills:  4+ability modifier.
Feats: Improved Initiative(H), Weapon Finesse(1), Dodge(F1)
Alignment: Chaotic Evil
Gear: Dagger, sap, chain shirt.

These are throwaway thugs to use as enforcers and troublemakers. They avoid lethal damage whenever possible, as nothing like murder/attempted murder to get the Guard involved. Not all are chaotic evil, but it's a good default alignment for designed troublemakers. They fight in swarms, flanking and beating single enemies down. They have strength in numbers but not much else. If pressed they run like hell.

Question:

How do you guys want to do the intro? Do you want me to put you together somehow, do it organically or design some reason for you guys to be together? The initial meetup is always a bit of a contrivance, so what do you think?

At least 3 of us are going to be somewhat new to Balmuria and looking to make friends, so I think if we're thrown together in a stressful situation where we can hopefully impress each other things should work out.

I don't really mind either way.

Not to distract from the question above, but notice: Each of you got an SR PM. Merc says he never checks his SR PM, so heads up in case any of you are like that too.

Eb's suggestion works. I'd have been around for the past two years, about, so either I chance upon them beset by troublemakers, or the other way around when they end up helping me?

Okay, I'll work something out then. IN THE MEANTIME.

I'd propose we start the game next Thursday, September 23rd. How does that sound for everyone?

Works for me.

Don't want to aim for tue/wed or something? I'm good, anyhow.

I'm not sure I'll be done by then. I think I can make Thursday safely.

Thursday is fine for me.

Any miscellaneous questions? Yuth had one about how native outsiders are handled. If you have any lay 'em out.

What is the most delicious candy in Balmuria called?

Candy as we know it isn't common. Sugar is rare and while some outside influences have shown it, chocolate isn't but a curiosity. Sweets revolve around fruits and honey. Lots of bakery goods with sweet jams, honey or fruit are common. The most popular and often made into bite sized pieces is called Elf Bread. This is a bastardization of a Pallanth recipe for fruit-flavored breads. The humans of Balmuria have turned it into candy versus Pallanth, which uses it as a main course. Apples, pears, peaches are the most common filler. Often small bits of honey are given out to dip the bread in as well.

Traditional elves view human Elf Bread as ruining a perfectly good recipe, by the way.

If you're rich enough to afford exotic fare you can get sweet things from most of the known world. If you're fantastically rich or a wizard with time to kill, you can get anything you could ever imagine in the Realms Beyond. If you're willing to risk it, of course.

Anything pressing about the elves and their ways that I should know? I'd like to incorporate some elvish affectations into Wayland, but all I know as of right now is isolationism and elf bread!

Man, every time Jessica went on about having elf bread I thought she was just being really pretentious/picky and getting something like regular bread with no crusts or something stupid like that, but it actually sounds pretty nice.

Quote from: Yuthirin on September 18, 2010, 02:49:24 AM
Anything pressing about the elves and their ways that I should know? I'd like to incorporate some elvish affectations into Wayland, but all I know as of right now is isolationism and elf bread!

The elves of Pallanth? Okay then, let's get to this. As elves are long lived, you see humans regarded as hasty, short lived things with no appreciation for proper culture. In recent times this attitude has been challenged due to increased contact with humans, but not enough to effect the remote elves of Rena. A typical elf would see a human and ask them what's the hurry? Compared a human, an elf from Pallanth is going to take their time, think and make a proper choice if possible. If going into a situation where swift choices are required, an elf will take the time to resolve all they can before this. They are not incapable of acting fast, but prefer not to whenever conditions permit.

The ordered, well kept kingdom of Pallanth has instilled patience and persistence in the elves. They are not chaotic nature worshipers as much as long lived patrons of the land. In this respect they are much more human than the stereotype. They own land, farm it and use it just like humans. They have a natural attachment to forests but can live anywhere. See the elves of Resolve and those brave, crazy souls that challenge the tundra in the shadow of the Amaryl Mountain Range. They respect nature but are not above changing it to their tastes.

Elves tend to change slowly and resist change. This particular facet of long life is currently part of the cultural war in Pallanth; the fey would prefer more flexible, chaotic elves. The elves of Pallanth are downright lawful in how they process and deal with the world. They emphasize community, kingdom, continuity. Monogamy is the law of the land; families are encouraged and expected. Underlying all of this is the loyalty and order instilled into the elves from a young age.

So Yuth, back at you. How do you think elves like this would imprint on someone?  Why wouldn't they get along with Wayland and why would he turn out the way he did with them? Food for thought.

Quote from: Ebiris on September 18, 2010, 08:28:19 AM
Man, every time Jessica went on about having elf bread I thought she was just being really pretentious/picky and getting something like regular bread with no crusts or something stupid like that, but it actually sounds pretty nice.

You can blame Roald for this. His father is the one who brought back the recipe, his family's bakery was the first shop to bastardize elf bread.

Oh yeah. Merc/Cor, you two were talking about mapping?

Vaguely. I was going to try to put together a map of the known world based on what Cor posted in page 3, and what you've posted in world flavor.

By all means, it would be awesome.

Quote from: Anastasia on September 18, 2010, 08:50:52 AM

Quote from: Yuthirin on September 18, 2010, 02:49:24 AM
Anything pressing about the elves and their ways that I should know? I'd like to incorporate some elvish affectations into Wayland, but all I know as of right now is isolationism and elf bread!

The elves of Pallanth? Okay then, let's get to this. As elves are long lived, you see humans regarded as hasty, short lived things with no appreciation for proper culture. In recent times this attitude has been challenged due to increased contact with humans, but not enough to effect the remote elves of Rena. A typical elf would see a human and ask them what's the hurry? Compared a human, an elf from Pallanth is going to take their time, think and make a proper choice if possible. If going into a situation where swift choices are required, an elf will take the time to resolve all they can before this. They are not incapable of acting fast, but prefer not to whenever conditions permit.

The ordered, well kept kingdom of Pallanth has instilled patience and persistence in the elves. They are not chaotic nature worshipers as much as long lived patrons of the land. In this respect they are much more human than the stereotype. They own land, farm it and use it just like humans. They have a natural attachment to forests but can live anywhere. See the elves of Resolve and those brave, crazy souls that challenge the tundra in the shadow of the Amaryl Mountain Range. They respect nature but are not above changing it to their tastes.

Elves tend to change slowly and resist change. This particular facet of long life is currently part of the cultural war in Pallanth; the fey would prefer more flexible, chaotic elves. The elves of Pallanth are downright lawful in how they process and deal with the world. They emphasize community, kingdom, continuity. Monogamy is the law of the land; families are encouraged and expected. Underlying all of this is the loyalty and order instilled into the elves from a young age.

So Yuth, back at you. How do you think elves like this would imprint on someone?  Why wouldn't they get along with Wayland and why would he turn out the way he did with them? Food for thought.

Well, I can see some of the above coloring the way that Wayland was raised. He would likely have the 'hastiness' that was engendered by his human half, and the elemental half would prove to be more chaotic than what the orderly elves were used to (specifically in his childhood and early teen years, when he was an obnoxious little blue snot). The lawful alignment he now has is entirely the doing of the monks in the temple he lived at. I see him having a strong appreciation for wind blowing through trees, and whipping through mountain passes. Moreover, I see him as being occasionally mistaken for a fey creature in Pallanth.

Hmm.

Quote from: Yuthirin on January 26, 1974, 10:35:28 PM
Well, I can see some of the above coloring the way that Wayland was raised. He would likely have the 'hastiness' that was engendered by his human half, and the elemental half would prove to be more chaotic than what the orderly elves were used to (specifically in his childhood and early teen years, when he was an obnoxious little blue snot). The lawful alignment he now has is entirely the doing of the monks in the temple he lived at. I see him having a strong appreciation for wind blowing through trees, and whipping through mountain passes. Moreover, I see him as being occasionally mistaken for a fey creature in Pallanth.

Hmm.

That all makes sense. I don't think he'd relate to the elven lawfulness as much as a more natural lawfulness. A harmony of nature, if you will. Someone who would live in nature instead of owning and altering nature to their will? A strong emphasis on the wind element would be a part of this. The sky, the wind, air, clouds, sunlight?

He could easily be mistaken as a fey. Fey knowledge is something the elves of Pallanth are weak on, as until 20ish years ago fey were all but extinct in Pallanth.  The typical elf wouldn't appreciate the difference between a half-fey and a genasi that easily. An elf knowledgeable enough to identify him as a genasi may still be reverent. It's not a far stretch to appreciate a genasi as a descendant of a raw elemental force, and that's not all that removed from what a fey is.

Character sheet request: Make sure your type and any subtypes are noted on your sheet. For example a human is a humanoid (human).  I know listing human sounds like it should say it all, but humor me and be specific.

January 27, 1974?  >_>

Quote from: Corwin on September 19, 2010, 03:27:41 AM
January 27, 1974?  >_>

There is forums magic you barely even begin to comprehend.

Added folding open lock into disable device into the house rules.

Added a house rule about half-elf paragons, it's a minor one that doesn't impact any of you.

Are any of you guys planning on using Knock or using Disable Device? I'm toying around with changing Knock from an auto-win versus locked doors. Any opinions?

As the rogue analogue I have disable device and will use it. Since I have UMD I may even be interested in scrolls of knock for stubborn doors later on. Having it work as in Pathfinder with a CL check +10 vs the lock's DC isn't a bad idea, though.

Quote from: Ebiris on September 20, 2010, 03:25:11 AM
As the rogue analogue I have disable device and will use it. Since I have UMD I may even be interested in scrolls of knock for stubborn doors later on. Having it work as in Pathfinder with a CL check +10 vs the lock's DC isn't a bad idea, though.

That's essentially what I was thinking of by modifying it.

I'm not particularly invested in this either way, but why modify everything? Knock seems a pretty innocuous spell.

Why not modify?

Okay, okay, that's unproductive. Serious answer? There's a mechanism in place that allows for picking locks. It scales up in difficulty and works well if you invest skill points. Knock can bypass all of this with a second level spell, no matter how hard a lock it is to deal with. Why not change it so there's a mechanism that deals with it fairly without making the party rogue lose out?

Because it didn't bother the party rogue one bit the previous game, despite both options being in play? It's just such a pointless change, to me, that I literally can't predict the next one. Epic balance lets you hop from cloud to cloud, levitate/fly does it easily with a spell. Jump makes it pointless to take any points in the jump skill, ever. Swimming is made redundant by either the spell that grants it or any of the transformations like alter self. Survival is fairly meaningless outside its tracking options if you can just produce water/sustenance. With Alarm around, you don't terribly need to leave a guard for the night. Flight+invisibility as a combination makes it improbably anyone but the insanely dedicated would notice anything with skills; you'd probably need truly epic uses of spot/listen there.

My point here is that Knock/DD (or Open Lock, which is now folded into DD) is far more benign than many of these examples and surely others I didn't bother with.

I kinda agree with Cor. Generally, the idea is that the skill, sure, it's not as good as the spell, but it's free, you can use it whenever. You enter a building with 300 locked doors, caster can't get them all, not without taking a month where a rogue would take a few hours, or spending 42k gold in scrolls.

The rogue gets all the doors he can, but if there's a particularly tricky lock, that's where the caster comes in.

Or failing a handy Knock spell, I haven't met the door that couldn't be destroyed by a power attacking fighter, often just as quickly as a lockpick would do it (albeit far louder)

Something that occured to me. The nerfing of Freedom of Movement in a similar fashion came to eliminate an immunity to several special attacks/dangers like grapple and what not, and without getting into the details of whether it's a good change or not, it made perfect sense due to this. Just eliminating something that solves a trivial problem like Knock/skills to open doors is more like eliminating rings of sustenance because adventurers must forage for food. You know, just nowhere in that league of relevance.

I'm gonna have to side with Corwin on this one. I think that, while handy to have the Knock spell, it can't really be spammed constantly over and over. A skilled rogue is needed. Knock is mostly situational, like if the caster is locked in a room alone/without a rogue.

Fair enough then, not gonna push something fringe through if most of you are fine with it.

[01:59] <Merc> Hey Ko, question for the purpose of known world: So east there's the ice-border of chillander, endless ocean to the west of dwarven lands, north is ocean and ice. What about south? Wastelands on the south-west of malmuth/baronies/desert/kelara. And south-east? Just endless ocean like to the west?
[02:00] <KOHOUND> Ask me in the morning? I'm dozing on and off mostly, not coherent.
[02:00] <Merc> heh, I'll post it on odds/ends

http://img245.imageshack.us/img245/3671/balmuriatheknownworld.jpg

Thanks Merc! Feedback!

Pallanth is a little straighter rather than north leaning in it's extremities. Past it isn't ocean, but after the Amaryl Mountain Range lies a long, wide tract of virgin land. This land is known of as the Lost Eastlands and very little is known about it in Balmuria. OOC it's where Alicia and Seira defeated the Destroyer and freed the Forsaken. Past that IS ocean.

Malmuth is bigger and deeper to the south by about 1/3rd or so. The wastelands don't jut southward past it, but form a contiguous coast. They stretch farther to the west than anyone's ever been.

The nameless southern sea is known as Maluth Ocean. Hasn't ever come up since the southern reaches of Malmuth never came into play.

No capital for the Southern Confederation was reached, but you know what? Let's run with Finlay. Berli felt like naming a city after himself.

Victoria is more northern to line up better with Balmuria and Arad.

Nodlitz and Kelara being the only two powers west of the Fiefdoms is moderate misrepresentation. Most of the land is unaligned or small free cities. However, this is a trend that's developing as the two powers strengthen and war threatens.

There isn't ocean west of Nodliz/Jungle. The jungle and the wasteland more or less meet, and what lies west of that is a question for the sages. The jungle is also a bit bigger and stretches to the north more.

There isn't sea to the west of the 'Unknown Kingdoms', but dwarf held mountains and hints of more lands beyond them. These were never explored and are beyond Balmuria's knowledge.

Feedback on your feedback, since I'm stuck in one place and bored!

Chillander would have to be more north than most areas, wouldn't it? Conforming to normal weather patterns, the level of cold that you're describing there would require it to be very far north, near one of the poles, to get the weather it does...unless there's some sort of localized weather condition that I'm not aware of.

Quote from: Yuthirin on September 22, 2010, 02:06:15 PM
Feedback on your feedback, since I'm stuck in one place and bored!

Chillander would have to be more north than most areas, wouldn't it? Conforming to normal weather patterns, the level of cold that you're describing there would require it to be very far north, near one of the poles, to get the weather it does...unless there's some sort of localized weather condition that I'm not aware of.

This assumes normal weather patterns and a mundane world. There's no assertion any of these are true in a fantasy world, they just are. There shouldn't be perfectly warm lands past the Amaryl Mountain Range at the same latitude/longitude, should there? But there are.

In other words, it's fantasy. Sometimes shit violates these rules 'cause of magic and other things. Same reason that there is the wastelands.

(http://img3.imageshack.us/img3/2117/balmuria22.th.jpg) (http://img3.imageshack.us/i/balmuria22.jpg/)

Edited map. Let me know if I misunderstood something, or need to change anything else.

It's not the Malmuth Ocean to the south, it's the Maluth ocean. Easy mistake to make! <_<

The lost eastlands don't connect to the northern continent at all. Everything else looks fine. Awesome.

Edited map again. Also added in Chyral as a location.

Awesome MErc, thanks. I'll add it to a sticky thread tomorrow.

Remember, we game tomorrow! Be there and be ready!

Yay for maps! Yay for game! Merc, what program did you use to make those maps?

Fractal Terrains & Photoshop.

General note: Any purchases, selling or other monetary transactions should go into loot. Post them, I use the loot topic as a reference for these things.

Attaching current progress on Baronies map. Still need to really draw the mountains & forests (using ugly patterned placehorder layers for now), and make reasonable trade routes, as well as making parches of the land look more like farmland.

I'm currently guessing/making stuff up as to the location of the main baronies' cities, which I wanted to put in the map (I am assuming the cities have the same name as the barony to which they belong), not to mention a lot of where placement of greenery/mountains/trade routes/rivers/etc would be.

Looks good!

Parsifal should be a little more to the south.

The Barbarian Lands should have much heavier forestation.

Malmuth should be bigger, I doubt you'd quite see Malmuth on a map of that scale and size.

Mostly looks really good, Merc.

I'll take out both cities for Tauret and Malmuth. You're right, at that map scale, Malmuth wouldn't be on the map, and probably neither would Tauret. I'm going to shift Purinn a bit more south-west.

Any thoughts on general location of baronies' main city? Which one do you want to be which of Armasea, Pilltain, Erran, Fanshold, Silvermane, Quintal, Fairwind, Sicham, and Malway? The first two would be the northern ones, but other than that, dunno.

I'll lower Parsifal southward.

On Barbarian Lands, would trade routes still exist -through- the heavy forest? I was planning to make it heavier, at the very least, but wasn't sure on trade routes being present through.

I'll go back to work on this map sometime tuesday, just wanted to get some preliminary comments on it.

You've still got Chyal about 200km away from Balmuria when it's closer to 5. Otherwise, tough, it looks fantastic!

NPCs and places updated. Nothing major, right now I'm making sure nothing's forgotten rather than going for depth.

Okay, you guys have a bit of loot and a bit of time. Anything any of you want to do IC?

Andrea can go visit Vayth to tie that up, anything else like that? The next day or two may be small single or dual PC things. If you want to talk to any one person or focus on something, say so.

I'll go with Andrea to talk with Vayth. I'll bring my goons along too.

It might be fun to visit my temple! Maybe even with someone, if they feel like tagging along? I also considered briefly checking on the drunk friend we've made to see that she's holding up alright, but it can be summarized if you'd like?

Checking up on Lisanne to ensure she remains woman who we can hear roar would be nice. Janson is also good for chumming Aaeru to her temple, otherwise hanging about the shop with Sylvie could be fun.

My only plan is to go to Vayth right now, really.

1. Andrea and Wayland go talk to Vayth, Noel and Branna are brought along.
2. Aaeru and Janson go visit The House of Suffering and then Lisanne, or vice versa.
3. Janson visits on Sylvie.

Okay.

Two rooms tomorrow, we'll see how all those sort out.

Woah, that avatar is a flashback, Merc-ury.

Heh, I often cycle back to Ami or Makoto.

Casual question, guys. So far much of the game has been 'do this, go here' stuff and setting up the city/background/people. What things do you want to do on a lower scale? Do you have any goals? Things you'd like to RP or interact with?

I'd like to get to know Sylvie better, a Selunite party sounds like it could be a blast, and the background stuff mentioned a grove in the Western Reaches where people are rumoured to disappear but animals love to congregate there, which sounds like just the sort of thing for a nature-focused guy who can talk to animals to check out.

Getting to know Josa and Sylvie better is a fun enough goal, though I don't think I'll pursue it as strongly as Janson. If they don't seem like they find my company fun outside of a business framework, I'll drop it. If not, fun.

The Selunite party is indeed something I think we could all enjoy, and speaking of background, it might be a good opportunity to offer Neveril a chance to visit. I see that working far better than just doing something privately, and would show fairly well if our premade backgrounds integrate well into the actual game.

I've gotten the name of the mage working with mephits below the city, and would like to meet him in the near future. I'd also like to study up on mephits and on the laws covering their existence in Balmuria beforehand, to be better-informed. It's an interesting enough aspect of the city to draw me in.

And I still want to finish the tour of the temples at some point. We seem to be visiting them one at a time, which is perfect and the way I like it. My point is more that I would like the trend to continue, and should it halt for a while, I'd like to initiate said visits myself. It's nice to meet the people there, and be confronted with their beliefs. Few things help you identify yourself as those who are different from you, and at the same time one can always stand to learn new things.

In the context of actual personal goals, I presently have none that go beyond generic 'aid and comfort' as my background suggests I contribute to Ilmater's temple. I pretty much assume that I spend the time I'm not in the sweets shop or occupied with a job there during the day, doing what I can. That sort of counts as a goal, but it's also largely off screen.

I nod to both of you and gnaw on Merc/Yuth to post!

---

If any of you are going to do any last minute shopping, post it here before the session. Yuth, are you bringing Noel/Branna along? I haven't seen you have them around lately, but I'd like to be sure. Any other last minute prep, you guys?

I'd like to interact a bit more with different people from Balmuria so it does feel like Andrea is actually someone from there. Definitely want to know Josa/Sylvie better, given hey, they're work-related acquaintances, and all. Things to do...I dunno, I'm mostly just following along with things as they drop by. I don't really have anything I particularly want Andrea to -do- objective-wise, besides just flesh her out more as a citizen of Balmuria (and well, as a character, obviously).

As for shopping, Andrea's not planning to buy anything at the moment.

Merc said he's around tomorrow and was offering to play if we're all up to it. Now ideally I'll be home from some personal stuff in time to take advantage of this, if all us are. If not, not.  We'll see how it develops.

I won't be around. Got plans. Hell, I'm tied up all weekend.

That's fine, I just figured I'd offer since I as far as I could recall, I was the only one that couldn't do saturdays and I was free this saturday. Have fun with your baseball or football game or whatever it was. =p

It's not happening any which way. DMing on 3.5 hours of sleep is a poor idea.

Next week reminder: Eb falls back for the end of DST, so he'll be here an hour later. This means we'll start later on Mon/Fri and slightly late Tuesday and Thursday. After that week the US falls back and we're all back in sync.

For everyone's benefit and for keeping track. Things that don't need to happen and can be assumed to occur offscreen are noted as being optional, do these if you have interest in them and RPing with the people in question.

Plot hook roundup:

1. Lunatics hold monthly festivals at the full moon that often descend into wild parties. Go to the next one and have fun!
2. A werewolf is active in the western baronies. Do anything about it?
3. Go back and finish exploring the cave Gweonryn ran off to.
4. Spend time helping Sylvie learn martial arts and other things. (Optional)

Missing any so far?

Well, there's also the three that we just picked up, obviously. The roc feathers, the live troll, and the crazy inventor.

Quote from: Merc on October 30, 2010, 04:59:45 PM
Well, there's also the three that we just picked up, obviously. The roc feathers, the live troll, and the crazy inventor.

Yeah, I'm aware. I figure that these are going to be discussed more OOC and IC coming up, so I haven't added them yet.

I don't have any particular interest in exploring the cave, though I don't have any objections to it, either, if others want to do it.

Let's talk to the Guard about the werewolf some time, and see what, if anything, we can do to help. We can go for this char after meeting the tinkerer and going after the troll, perhaps?

Sylvie time and monthly Lunatic revel are fun and you should have us do it whenever appropriate, I bet it'd be fun IC. Although the first is probably not as fun as a group, so maybe during those times we split up, and we can take turns with the teaching?

I'm slightly curious about that one door in the place we found Gweonryn, but not enough that I'll go if nobody else is interested.

I don't really care about the Lunatics festival thing, but I'll follow along if/when it happens.

I like Sylvie time, so I like seeing it stick around IC.

The werewolf thing could be interesting to do something about, but we probably do need to talk to the Guard about it first and seeing what's going to get done there if we don't involve ourselves.

Todo list for the next downday I have that I don't mind spending on DM stuff:

1. Update places/NPCs topic.
2. Bug Merc about maps.
3. Bug Yuth about stats.
4. Update house rules with odds and ends rulings.

Bonus misc query: Cor, when did you become a mod of the old Balmuria board?

I am? Pretty sure that only goes for the two log boards there.

I'll finish map stuff once I finish my two class project assignments. Worst case, I'll work on it in two weeks, after they're due.

Quote from: Anastasia on November 13, 2010, 03:57:32 AM
Todo list for the next downday I have that I don't mind spending on DM stuff:

1. Update places/NPCs topic.
2. Bug Merc about maps.
3. Bug Yuth about stats.
4. Update house rules with odds and ends rulings.

Bonus misc query: Cor, when did you become a mod of the old Balmuria board?

1. Made progress on 1, will drive it home tonight and tomorrow. Did 2, need to do 3. 4 is last I think.

Sylvie's level up is finished. I also did Noel/Branna, including fitting feats for how they've been so far.  Added a house rule for favored souls; I meant to add this earlier as I use it in planar, but it slipped through the cracks.

Sheet audits! Some of this may be stuff you haven't finished updating yet. If it is, feel free to say so. I'm noting anything that catches my eye.

Merc:

- You're using the houseruled toughness and not the SRD standard one, right? Just making sure.
- What ten class skills did you select as class skills for human paragon? Bear in mind they're set in stone once you take the first level in it.
- Perform(Oratory) is 7/+10, when it should be 7/+11. Gather information is likewise short by 1, looks like you forgot to apply the bump in your charisma modifier to every skill.
- You returned the Silver Longsword, remove it from your sheet.
- You get Turn Undead this level, make sure you understand how the houseruled version works. Your turn level is still your paladin level-3.
- Paladin spellcasting starts at level 4 and is purely charisma based(see house rule); but you don't have anything listed there yet.

Eb:

- When you list skirmish in special attacks, make sure it notes the base skirmish is +2d6/+1 AC as well as the improved skirmish value.  This one constantly trips me up.
- You won the award for least amount of things I can comment on. Congratulations!

Yuth:

- Please divide your gestalt class list by level. I don't want to see this: Fighter 2/Monk 4/Psychic Warrior 2, but instead something like monk 4//fighter 2/psychic warrior 2. Keep the sides straight.
- What's your grapple mod? I don't see it anywhere.
- You have six power points. Could you run me through how you calculate that? I'm not saying you're wrong, but I want a demonstration of how the math works.
- Psionic Fist adds 2d6 to your melee attack. Does it mean one attack, a full attack, a round of attacks or what? It's not specific.

Cor:

- Link me to acolyte or initiate or whatever it is of spirituality? I think I approved the second one in the chain already anyway, but I forgot to save the link.
- Code of Conduct looks good. I need to read it and have Ilmater's dogma open to compare it to, but it all feels right.
- Related to the code, how do you feel about the troll? Do you feel it's bondage is fair or should your defense of the oppressed reach even to it? This isn't a OMG MAKE THE PALADIN FALL thing, so don't worry. Just curious.

-You did, yes. The whole tree, in fact, as far as I recall (although the fourth, as written, is epic so it's fairly irrelevant). http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/3.5e_Exalted_Feats
You had me change 'attack action' to 'standard action' with initiate, so I followed it with acolyte as well.

-Cool. The idea was to go with the general concept of compassion, but not be solely all about Ilmater. It shouldn't counter anything he preaches, though it likely branches out more from how he tends to be.

-The code applies to sentients by necessity (well, self-aware sentients would be a better way of putting it). True, I wouldn't support animal cruelty, but I don't condemn keeping pets chained down or slaughtering animals for food. I didn't find the troll's restraints or what I thought of its future as a particularly cruel and unusual punishment. I'm not particularly intelligent, so like with the bearded devil about which I did not know IC, as long as I made a proper inquiry with people I see as (better) authorities on the subject I don't think my actions are wrong. The CoC is very much about informed actions crossing it. If Ilmater thinks I need to be more observant or ask more knowledgeable people, I would welcome his input and follow his guidance. Specifically, on trolls, SRD lists them at 6 int which is fairly borderline; I was told the giants keep them as pets, and it did not seem to understand Janson or make any attempt to communicate. I'd look at it as similar to a chained bear. My reaction might be different if the troll's higher intelligence were made obvious in any way, or if someone pointed out that studying the troll would likely be from cutting it up into pieces and that it would be fully aware of this.

Quote- You're using the houseruled toughness and not the SRD standard one, right? Just making sure.

Yes.

Quote- What ten class skills did you select as class skills for human paragon? Bear in mind they're set in stone once you take the first level in it.

I honestly didn't really think about it, was just going with existing bard skills+intimidate as new one.

Uhm, I guess:  Bluff, Diplomacy, Gather Information, Sense Motive, Intimidate, Knowledge:Arcana/Planes, Concentration, Perform, Use Magic Device.

Quote- Perform(Oratory) is 7/+10, when it should be 7/+11. Gather information is likewise short by 1, looks like you forgot to apply the bump in your charisma modifier to every skill.

Done.

Quote- You returned the Silver Longsword, remove it from your sheet.

Whoops, forgot about that. Done.

Quote- You get Turn Undead this level, make sure you understand how the houseruled version works. Your turn level is still your paladin level-3.

I do.

Quote- Paladin spellcasting starts at level 4 and is purely charisma based(see house rule); but you don't have anything listed there yet.

Edited that. I misread the line and was seeing it as starting at level 5. Whoops!

Quote from: Anastasia on November 20, 2010, 03:01:04 AM

Yuth:

- Please divide your gestalt class list by level. I don't want to see this: Fighter 2/Monk 4/Psychic Warrior 2, but instead something like monk 4//fighter 2/psychic warrior 2. Keep the sides straight.

Done.

Quote- What's your grapple mod? I don't see it anywhere.

It's not on there. Fixed.

Quote- You have six power points. Could you run me through how you calculate that? I'm not saying you're wrong, but I want a demonstration of how the math works.

3 Bonus points in relation to 2nd class level, 16 Wis. 1 point from class. 2 points fro Psionic Talent feat.

Quote- Psionic Fist adds 2d6 to your melee attack. Does it mean one attack, a full attack, a round of attacks or what? It's not specific.

Psionic Fist expends the Psionic Focus. While I'm not reading a limit per day on it, if I want to use it more than once in a fight, I need to refocus via a Concentration check.

Tomorrow is Wednesday but I'm off. I may run a room or two, I may not. See how I feel.

Questions about two prcs:

Spellsword (Complete Warrior p80). Prerequisites are: BAB +4, Knowledge/Arcana 6 ranks, Proficiency with all simple and martial weapons and all armor, Able to cast 2nd level arcane spells, Must have defeated a foe through force of arms alone.

I presume it's a legit prc for the game, gestalt notwithstanding? When is the earliest we could qualify for it?

Mythic Exemplar (Complete Champion p86). This one's a mess, since making it modular for all sorts of different deities made it lose its soul, but here I'll post it going by the 'Sunyarta' path. I was browsing through my books and realized that it was actually cool that way. My question here is is you agree, and if it works as it is presented here? If so, when can one qualify for it?

Prerequisites: Knowledge/History 3 ranks, Knowledge/Religion 7 ranks, BAB +5

Hit Die: D8

• Level BAB Fort Ref Will  Special                              Spellcasting
• 1st    +0   +1  +0  +0   --
• 2nd    +1   +1  +0  +0  Least Paragon's Gift           +1 level of existing spellcasting class
• 3rd    +2   +3  +1  +1  Advancement
• 4th    +3   +3  +1  +1  Lesser Paragon's Gift          +1 level of existing spellcasting class
• 5th    +3   +4  +1  +1  Advancement
• 6th    +4   +5  +2  +2  Greater Paragon's Gift         +1 level of existing spellcasting class
• 7th    +5   +6  +2  +2  Advancement
• 8th    +6   +6  +2  +2  Supreme Paragon's Gift       +1 level of existing spellcasting class
• 9th    +6   +7  +3  +3  Advancement
• 10th   +7   +7  +3  +3  Ability Boost, Embody Paragon

Class Skills (4 + Int mod): Craft, Knowledge/History, Knowledge/N&R, Knowledge/Religion, Listen, Profession, Ride and Spot.
Special: You can also add four class skills from one prior class to your mythic exemplar skill list.

At 2nd level, you gain the first of several supernatural abilities that allow you to channel the spirit and skills of your paragon. Unless otherwise noted, each paragon's gift (least, lesser, greater, and supreme) requires a swift action to invoke, lasts for a number of rounds equal 4 to your mythic exemplar level, is usable once per day, and has a caster level equal to your mythic exemplar level. If you choose, you can forgo your daily use of a higher ability for an extra use of any gift lesser than it.

Paragon's Gift, Least (Su): The critical threat range of one weapon you wield increases by 1. This increase stacks with those from other sources, such as the keen weapon property or the Improved Critical feat.

Advancement (Ex): At 3rd, 5th, 7th, and 9th levels, you gain a +1 bonus on all opposed Strength checks (such as those made on bull rushes or trip attacks), as well as all Strength-based skill checks.

Paragon's Gift, Lesser (Su): +4 insight bonus to Strength.

Paragon's Gift, Greater (Su): You can use haste, as the spell, on yourself only.

Paragon's Gift, Supreme (Su): You can use divine power, as the spell.

Ability Boost (Ex): At 10th level, your Strength ability score permanently increases by 2.

Embody Paragon (Su): When you reach 10th level, you truly embody every physical and spiritual concept that your paragon stood for. Unless otherwise noted, the ability you gain is permanent and constant, as long as you remain conscious. If it is suppressed, you can raise the effect again as a swift action. You can ignore 15 points of damage reduction (except epic) when attacking foes, and 15 points of hardness when striking inanimate objects.

Quote from: Corwin on November 30, 2010, 02:22:03 PM
Questions about two prcs:

Spellsword (Complete Warrior p80). Prerequisites are: BAB +4, Knowledge/Arcana 6 ranks, Proficiency with all simple and martial weapons and all armor, Able to cast 2nd level arcane spells, Must have defeated a foe through force of arms alone.

I presume it's a legit prc for the game, gestalt notwithstanding? When is the earliest we could qualify for it?

Level 6, which is the earliest you could get in normally, short of shenanigans. While you could qualify earlier with gestalt, the following rule still applies:

Quote- The lowest level to enter a PrC is 6.  This is to prevent qualifying for PrCs early due to gestalt. If a PrC is designed to be entered earlier I may allow it on a case by case basis. Cute tricks and charopping does not count as designed.

Anyway, spellsword has enough redeeming stuff in it to be allowed. That assumes you want to bother, half of it misses you since you lack arcane spell failure to reduce. I'm guessing a bonus feat and arcane channeling tempts you?

QuoteMythic Exemplar (Complete Champion p86). This one's a mess, since making it modular for all sorts of different deities made it lose its soul, but here I'll post it going by the 'Sunyarta' path. I was browsing through my books and realized that it was actually cool that way. My question here is is you agree, and if it works as it is presented here? If so, when can one qualify for it?

Level 6. There's some confusion since there are varying ways to get in depending on your exemplar embodied. I'm not even going to try and sort that out, instead I'm putting the level 6 rule on it. Anyway, feel free to take it as long as you refluff it to something suitable to the campaign world.  As for the powers? I'm not quite sure if Advancement RAW works with grapple, as grapple's it's own thing versus a strength check and I'm too tired to look it up this moment.  If you're interested in the class talk to me about it.  Rest of it looks okay.

Any ideas how you would reflavor it?

Re: Spellsword, yes, pretty much. Feats are important for me, and channeling is nice.

Mythic Exemplar seems to be set for lvl5 to me without any special effort required, but I suppose it doesn't matter that much to me. Advancement, like the rest of the abilities, was basically lifted verbatim from Complete Champion's writeup of the class. Yeah, even though Grapple is a str check like Bullrush or Trip it's not actually listed as one on SRD. But that does feel like semantics, and it's probably that way since Grapple's the one that appears on stat blocks. If that happened with Trip, it'd probably be referred to as an 'opposed trip check' and not 'opposed str check', too.

As for refluffing it, I don't really foresee any problem whatsoever. Strength-themed class, the whole bit about growing stronger (pun unintended), and a divine angle to boot. It shouldn't be difficult at all. I see it as basically continuing the 3 level Paragon class, while now trying to aspire to come closer to an aspect of your deity. Strength being one of Ilmater's domains, it should work like a charm.

That all sounds good.

Added a new house rule for favored souls, they now gain turning as a cleric.

New house rules are posted.

1 added to general rulings, clarifications and miscellania. This regards PrCs in gestalt.
1 added to magic. Sun Domain now grants empower turning as its granted power.

I'm thinking about expanding the alignment system. In particular http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=7577205 has an interesting take on it.  I feel that adopting exalted, vile, anarchic and axiomatic as alignment types is useful.

Casually, what do you all think? I brought this up in chat today and there was a bit of discussion. Worthwhile doing? Some of this already exists in game with Exalted and other alignment typed feats, it mainly codifies it into game. In particular, some of the finer graining looks really nice. A LG paladin would be different from an Axiomatic Good paladin or a Lawful Exalted paladin. It also helps with outsiders and other alignment exemplars, who take alignment past all but the rarest mortal standards.

In game it would only effect Aaeru, who's Lawful Exalted. Mechanics I can get into in a bit if there's interest, as well as further defining what all of this would mean.

What do you guys think? Interested? Not interested? Neutral? Questions at all? Let me know.

Those posts were interesting enough, I thought. Do you want to adopt the whole mechanic, including the alignment spells (prot from evil and how that guy suggests to convert it), or just the fluff?

I don't plan to alter any spells or abilities to be more or less effective. A protection from evil would work on an evil or vile creature just as well, nor would smite evil be any more or less effective on them. I want the added definition and description of expanding, not to fuck around with mechanics.

A variant or homebrew power to play with this would be acceptable, though.

I don't really care either way, to be honest. As you said, it doesn't really affect Andrea, since she'll stay chaotic good under that system's expansion. She's not that deeply aligned in good to be exalted by that definition, and ditto on the chaotic side.

If the differentiation helps you, I certainly don't mind it, and I don't really think about alignment that deeply in either case anyhow, I just think about it generally in degrees.

I would assume it doesn't affect things with class restrictions? As an example, barbarians can't be lawful. Does the meaning just expanded to "they can't be lawful/axiomatic", not that it becomes limited to the extreme of axiomatic?

The 25-alignment system vs the 9-alignment system just basically splits off the subcategories of extremities off, from what I can understand, right?
So, say you divided 9-alignment axis to: 0-33% Chaotic, 34-67% Neutral, 68-100% Lawful. Then right now that 68-100% covers lawful and axiomatic.
Converting to a 25-alignment axis, it just becomes something like 0-5% Anarchic, 6-33% Chaotic, 34-67% Neutral, 68-95% Lawful, 96-100% Axiomatic.

So...it doesn't really change much outside of making a few extra categories. Don't care, go for it?

QuoteI would assume it doesn't affect things with class restrictions? As an example, barbarians can't be lawful. Does the meaning just expanded to "they can't be lawful/axiomatic", not that it becomes limited to the extreme of axiomatic?

A barbarian couldn't be lawful or axiomatic, yes. The expanded definitions cover the more extreme cases; a spell that protects against chaos also protects against anarchic.

QuoteThe 25-alignment system vs the 9-alignment system just basically splits off the subcategories of extremities off, from what I can understand, right? So, say you divided 9-alignment axis to: 0-33% Chaotic, 34-67% Neutral, 68-100% Lawful. Then right now that 68-100% covers lawful and axiomatic. Converting to a 25-alignment axis, it just becomes something like 0-5% Anarchic, 6-33% Chaotic, 34-67% Neutral, 68-95% Lawful, 96-100% Axiomatic.

Yes. It splits off the corner cases, the outsiders, the rarities. Among mortals, axiomatic, exalted, anarchic and vile would be rare.

This is an attempt to de-suck Shining Blade of Heironeous. Wish me luck, I'll need it

This is a beta, I'm posting it for feedback. Shining Blade of Herioneous is notoriously shitty as a PrC, so I wanted to take as wing at upgrading it. Most of the bonuses are generic so far, I'm testing the frame out.

There's no capstone yet, debating it still.

Shining Blade of the Triad

Hit Dice: d10

Requirements

Alignment

Lawful Good.

Base Attack Bonus

+5

Skills

Knowledge(Religion) 7 ranks

Feat

Weapon Focus

Special

Must worship Ilmater, Tyr or Helm.

Class Skills

The Shining Blade of the Triad's class skills are: Concentration, Craft, Diplomacy, Heal, Knowledge(Religion), Profession, Spellcraft.

Weapon and Armor Proficiency

A Shining Blade of the Triad is proficient in all simple and martial weapons, as well as all armor and shields.

Class Level	Base Attack Bonus	Fort Save	Ref Save	Will Save	Special	Spells per day
1	+1	+2	+0	+2	Shock Blade	-
2	+2	+3	+0	+3	Electric Endurance	-
3	+3	+3	+1	+3	Holy Blade	-
4	+4	+4	+1	+4	Holy Protection+1	-
5	+5	+4	+1	+4	Axiomatic Blade	-
6	+6	+5	+2	+5	Mettle, Holy Protection+2	-
7	+7	+5	+2	+5	Brilliant Blade	-
8	+8	+6	+2	+6	Sacred Body 5/evil, Holy Protection+3	-
9	+9	+6	+3	+6	Placeholder	-
10	+10	+7	+3	+7	Sacred Body 10/silver and evil, Holy Protection+4	-

Shock Blade (Su)

A Shining Blade of the Triad can cause a weapon he is holding to crackle with heavenly lightning. This causes the weapon to deal an extra 1d6 electricity damage on a successful hit.  This lasts for a number of rounds equal to the Shining Blade of Triad's level plus his charisma modifier.  This effect lasts even if he drops it or gives to another person to wield, though he can dismiss the effect as a free action on his turn. He may do this a number of times per day equal to his Shining Blade of the Triad level plus his charisma modifier.

This damage stacks with a shocking weapon.

Electric Endurance (Ex)

A Shining Blade of the Triad is blessed by the Triad, able to call down heavenly lightning. As a result of his constant exposure to electricity and his ability to channel it safely, he gains resistance to electricity 10.

Holy Blade (Su)

At 3rd level, whenever the Shining Blade of the Triad imbues a weapon with Shock Blade, he also bestows the weapon with holy energies. This causes the weapon to deal an extra 2d6 holy damage on each successful hit, as well as count as good to bypass damage reduction. This damage applies only against evil targets.

This damage stacks with a holy weapon.

Holy Protection (Su)

By 4th level, the Shining Blade of the Triad is favored by his patrons, protected by their divine blessings. This manifests as a deflection bonus to armor class. It is +1 at level 4, +2 at level 6, +3 at level 8 and +4 at level 10.

Axiomatic Blade (Su)

On reaching 5th level, the Shining Blade of the Triad also imbues his weapons with the power of law. This causes the weapon to deal an extra 2d6 points of axiomatic damage on each successful hit, as well as count as lawful to bypass damage reduction. This damage applies only against chaotic targets.

This damage stacks with an axiomatic weapon.

Mettle (Ex)

At 6th level, the Shining Blade of the Triad can resist magical and unusual attacks with great willpower of fortitude. If they makes a successful will or fortitude save against an attack that normally would have a lesser effect on a successful save (such as a spell with a saving throw entry of Will half or Fortitude partial), they instead completely negate the effect. An unconscious or sleeping Shining Blade of the Triad does not gain the benefit of mettle.

Brilliant Blade (Su)

On obtaining 7th level, the Shining Blade of the Triad pours the pure, blinding majesty of the Triad into his weapon. This causes the weapon to function as a brilliant energy and ghost touch weapon.

These overlap with a brilliant energy or ghost touch weapon, as stacking is irrelevant.

Sacred Body (Su)

By 8th level, the Shining Blade of the Triad is nearly one with the glory of the Realms Above. As a result his flesh is not entirely mortal, celestial aspects blessing him. This grants him damage reduction 5/evil. At level 10 this improves to damage reduction 10/silver and evil.

I'll just echo Merc's sentiments. Doesn't much bother me, so go for it.

As for the Shining Blade, DR/silver alone makes it awesome. I'd certainly consider it just as strongly as Hellreaver for a paladin type.

Yeah, I'm wavering on if silver's too good for it. If it stays it may end up the capstone, since a two-part DR is really good.

Looking over your shining blade fix, I think you might have overdone it especially since you lowered the entry level. It's pretty strong for just losing the crappy spellcasting progression from the original. I would say you should actually have increased the entry level with how strong it is, and even then might want to shift around some stuff.

The shock blade ability has an incredible amount of use per day times. Assuming conservatively a paladin with +3 charisma going into this, by level 15 he can use it 13/day and lasts 13 rounds. A bit much? Either make it take a move or standard action to activate and just don't restrict it, or the amount of times it can be used needs to decrease.

I would have said put Holy Protection at level 1, with it increasing every three levels (at 4, 7, 10) +4. It's a bit more spread out that way.

Mettle should probably be available a few levels earlier.

I think I might have split the bonus of the holy/axiomatic blades, made them available at same levels with you having to pick one or the other, and then later on you can get both benefits at once.

The DR/silver is pretty strong. It's not bad as a capstone, I think, but being able to get it by level 15 seems kind of early maybe? I don't have the best feel for balance post level 12 or so though.

Quote from: Merc on December 08, 2010, 06:20:58 PM
Looking over your shining blade fix, I think you might have overdone it especially since you lowered the entry level. It's pretty strong for just losing the crappy spellcasting progression from the original. I would say you should actually have increased the entry level with how strong it is, and even then might want to shift around some stuff.

Shining Blade isn't meant to be a caster PrC and never really was, so why pretend it is? It's intended for fighters, rangers, paladins - if they don't mind losing casting progression - those sorts. I do agree about the entry pre-reqs being a little bit easy. K:R 7 ranks is a problem for non paladins short of a dip, unless Apt Learner gets involved. That's the main tax to it - you either get in much later thanks to it being cross class, you dip into something to get the ranks, or you're a paladin/cleric type who sacrifices casting to get in.

Is that enough? At the least I'm going to raise the BAB requirement to +6 to prevent it being gone into earlier.

QuoteThe shock blade ability has an incredible amount of use per day times. Assuming conservatively a paladin with +3 charisma going into this, by level 15 he can use it 13/day and lasts 13 rounds. A bit much? Either make it take a move or standard action to activate and just don't restrict it, or the amount of times it can be used needs to decrease.

I'm going to tone down the number of times it can be used per day. Being a swift action allows it to be brought o bear without wasting a round, which is often vital in combat. That's one of the main improvements, preventing you from standing around for a round just to get your class power available.

QuoteI would have said put Holy Protection at level 1, with it increasing every three levels (at 4, 7, 10) +4. It's a bit more spread out that way.

Mettle should probably be available a few levels earlier.

I pushed those back to make it a little less dip-bait. I may fiddle those a bit still, but that's the reasoning at work.

QuoteI think I might have split the bonus of the holy/axiomatic blades, made them available at same levels with you having to pick one or the other, and then later on you can get both benefits at once.

I'd rather not get so finicky, my preference is to make the class work in a straightforward manner.

QuoteThe DR/silver is pretty strong. It's not bad as a capstone, I think, but being able to get it by level 15 seems kind of early maybe? I don't have the best feel for balance post level 12 or so though.

Let's say level 16 since I plan to bump up the BAB requirement.  By that point damage reduction 10/whatever is common enough. Amid CR 16s, planetars have 10/evil*, an old black dragon have 10/magic, a cornugon has 10/silver and good, a greater stone golem has 10/adamantine and a nightwalker has 15/good and silver. So it's about balanced for that level.

*My personal opinion is that a planetar should have a second component suited to the ethos it follows. So that should be 10/evil and x.

This is an attempt to de-suck Shining Blade of Heironeous. Wish me luck, I'll need it!

This is take 2 on a beta. I tweaked several things, rebalanced and added a final blade ability. Let me know what you think.

It's modularly designed. While it's flavored for the Triad, a chaotic good character could use it with minor tweaking. Change axiomatic to anarchic and change DR 10/silver and evil to DR 10/cold iron and evil and you're set. By the same token you could convert this to a PrC for LE or CE, though it would take a little more work.

From a design perspective I took the power of the class and souped it up. It's faster to use, you get more out of it and can use it more often. No longer are the class abilities outdone by buying a weapon appropriate for your character level. Even taking into account that change, the class was still half empty. So I added abilities to the odd levels, loosely tied to the blade ability the level before it.

This class isn't designed for paladins or clerics. While one could take it if they sacrifice casting, they're not the primary target. This is for a pious fighter, a scout, a ranger, a monk perhaps. Something like that. I severed it's ties to divine casting altogether.  

Shining Blade of the Triad

Hit Dice: d10

Requirements

Alignment

Lawful Good.

Base Attack Bonus

+6

Skills

Knowledge(Religion) 7 ranks

Feat

True Believer

Special

Must worship Ilmater, Tyr or Helm.

Class Skills

The Shining Blade of the Triad's class skills are: Concentration, Climb, Craft, Diplomacy, Heal, Intimidate, Jump, Knowledge(Religion), Profession, Swim.

Skill Points Per Level

2 + intelligence modifier.

Weapon and Armor Proficiency

A Shining Blade of the Triad is proficient in all simple and martial weapons, as well as all armor and shields.

Class Level	Base Attack Bonus	Fort Save	Ref Save	Will Save	Special	Spells per day
1	+1	+2	+0	+0	Shock Blade	-
2	+2	+3	+0	+0	Electric Endurance	-
3	+3	+3	+1	+1	Holy Blade	-
4	+4	+4	+1	+1	Holy Protection+1	-
5	+5	+4	+1	+1	Axiomatic Blade	-
6	+6	+5	+2	+2	Mettle, Holy Protection+2	-
7	+7	+5	+2	+2	Thundering Blade	-
8	+8	+6	+2	+2	Sacred Body 5/evil, Holy Protection+3	-
9	+9	+6	+3	+3	Brilliant Blade	-
10	+10	+7	+3	+3	Sacred Body 10/silver and evil, Holy Protection+4	-

Shock Blade (Su)

A Shining Blade of the Triad can cause a weapon he is holding to crackle with heavenly lightning as a swift action. This causes the weapon to deal an extra 1d6 electricity damage on a successful hit.  This lasts for a number of rounds equal to the character's level in this class. This effect lasts even if he drops it or gives to another person to wield, though he can dismiss the effect as a swift action on his turn. He may do this a number of times per day equal to his Shining Blade of the Triad level.

This damage stacks with a shocking weapon.

Electric Endurance (Ex)

A Shining Blade of the Triad is blessed by the Triad, able to call down heavenly lightning. As a result of his constant exposure to electricity and his ability to channel it safely, he gains resistance to electricity 10.

Holy Blade (Su)

At 3rd level, whenever the Shining Blade of the Triad imbues a weapon with Shock Blade, he also bestows the weapon with holy energies. This causes the weapon to deal an extra 2d6 holy damage on each successful hit, as well as count as good to bypass damage reduction. This damage applies only against evil targets.

This damage stacks with a holy weapon.

Holy Protection (Su)

By 4th level, the Shining Blade of the Triad is favored by his patrons, protected by their divine blessings. This manifests as a deflection bonus to armor class. It is +1 at level 4, +2 at level 6, +3 at level 8 and +4 at level 10.

Axiomatic Blade (Su)

On reaching 5th level, the Shining Blade of the Triad also imbues his weapons with the power of law. This causes the weapon to deal an extra 2d6 points of axiomatic damage on each successful hit, as well as count as lawful to bypass damage reduction. This damage applies only against chaotic targets.

This damage stacks with an axiomatic weapon.

Mettle (Ex)

At 6th level, the Shining Blade of the Triad can resist magical and unusual attacks with great willpower of fortitude. If they makes a successful will or fortitude save against an attack that normally would have a lesser effect on a successful save (such as a spell with a saving throw entry of Will half or Fortitude partial), they instead completely negate the effect. An unconscious or sleeping Shining Blade of the Triad does not gain the benefit of mettle.

Thundering Blade (Su)

At 7th level, the fury of the three empowers the Shining Blade of the Triad. Thunderous sonic energy erupts with each strike, dealing an extra 1d6 sonic damage on a successful hit. In addition, any target struck must make a fortitude save (DC 10 + Shining Blade of the Triad class level + strength modifier) or be deafened.  A target can only be forced to save against deafening once per round, subsequent strikes in the same round do not add further chances to deafen. The sonic damage is still dealt, and being struck again in a later round allows another chance to be deafened.

Creatures who do not take sonic damage from this attack through resistance or immunity cannot be deafened.

Sacred Body (Su)

By 8th level, the Shining Blade of the Triad is nearly one with the glory of the Realms Above. As a result his flesh is not entirely mortal, celestial aspects blessing him. This grants him damage reduction 5/evil. At level 10 this improves to damage reduction 10/silver and evil.

Brilliant Blade (Su)

On obtaining 9th level, the Shining Blade of the Triad pours the pure, blinding majesty of the Triad into his weapon. This causes the weapon to function as a brilliant energy and ghost touch weapon. Unlike a normal brilliant energy weapon, this ability does not inhibit the affected weapon from damaging undead, constructs and objects.

These overlap with a brilliant energy or ghost touch weapon, as stacking is irrelevant.

Quote from: Anastasia on December 08, 2010, 11:43:41 PM

Let's say level 16 since I plan to bump up the BAB requirement.  By that point damage reduction 10/whatever is common enough. Amid CR 16s, planetars have 10/evil*, an old black dragon have 10/magic, a cornugon has 10/silver and good, a greater stone golem has 10/adamantine and a nightwalker has 15/good and silver. So it's about balanced for that level.

That's for monsters, though. Compare it with a Barbarian (DR 4/-) or a Warlock (DR 4/cold iron) and it's way higher. A Green Star Adept would have DR 10/adamantine at 16th level if it entered the PrC at 6th level, but it's a class mostly built around making yourself into a golem.

edit: Dread Necromancer gets DR 8/bludgeoning and magic by level 16.

Others do get DR close to it.  Celestial Mystic, Divine Crusader and Champion of Gwynharwyf(DR 5/- with the assumption that DR /- counts for more in most reckonings) get DR 10 as capstones. I feel DR/magic or DR/evil or good isn't all that great as a capstone. It's not bad, but by the time you get it, most serious enemies can bypass it.  I feel adding a second component makes it a more rewarding capstone and one likely to have a bigger impact on your character.


KO NOTE: FROM HERE ON BELOW FOR HOUSE RULE CHANGES

(Disregard all of you, this is for my own bookkeeping.)

Alignment Changes

After talking with all of you we're going to add Exalted, Axiomatic, Anarchic and Vile as alignments.  I'm going to do a summary here and post more in the rules thread. This is what you guys need to know for now. Questions are welcome.

Classes

Any class that requires an alignment component of law, chaos, good or evil can also have the more extreme version. As an example: A paladin can be Lawful Exalted with no penalty, nor is there any penalty to being 'only' a lawful good paladin. This is essentially the same thing as a paladin with exalted feats versus one who doesn't.

Feats

Exalted, Vile, Axiomatic and Anarchic feats require you to have the matching alignment to take. This is no practical change, anyone aligned enough to take an alignment feat should be that alignment anyway. Other feats tied to alignment do not require this. You don't need to be Axiomatic to take Law Devotion, for example.

Magic

Any spell that functions on an alignment also functions on it's more extreme version. Holy Word works on both evil and vile creatures in the exact same way, for example.

Monsters and alignment

Creatures who are not outsiders or other paragons of alignment are unchanged by these new rules. For example, most SRD standard elves are still chaotic good. There are a few who are anarchic or exalted, just like any other normal variation. There may be a few more paragons of good or chaos amid them than average, all due to the fact that more of them start at chaotic good. It's numbers.

Creatures who are set as always being a particular alignment, as noted in their statistics, are treated differently. Most of these are outsiders or similar creatures, dedicated to an alignment on a primal nature. Any creature with an always alignment is about 50% likely to be the more extreme version. In addition, creatures that possess the appropriate alignment subtype are even more likely to be that alignment. However, not all of these creatures must be so extreme. A lawful evil devil would contrast with a lawful vile or axiomatic vile devil.

I was talking to Cor about how I prefer Pathfinder's approach to skills and this came up, in Pathfinder you can determine the properties of a magic item via spellcraft.

Considering the Identify spell basically serves as a small tax on magic items, and is 'all or nothing' which generally leads to us ignoring items till we have them identified then throwing them away if they have detrimental properties, turning it into a skill check would make their use flow more naturally, letting us pick up and work with stuff we find on an adventure, and by having certain properties revealed only at certain DCs, allows cursed items to seem initially appealing and turn them into viable traps and RP fodder.

So yeah, I'm suggesting we use this as a house rule.

Link me to the page on the Pathfinder SRD where this comes up? I'd like to review the rule before anything else.

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/skills/spellcraft

Looks good, I have no objection to it. What do the rest of you think?

no issues

No objections to identifying magic item properties via Spellcraft+DM.

Added a revised Moon Domain to house rules.

NPC projected level ups. This is your chance to have imput or make suggestions on how they develop!

Noel: Fighter 4//Rogue 4; add stat point to con, take Mobility as his fighter 4 feat.
Branna: Fighter 4//Rogue 4; add stat point to dex. take Weapon Specialization as his fighter 4 feat.
Sylvie: Factotum 3//Fighter 1/Monk 2;  not sure about her level 3 feat yet.
Simmer: Dryad 5//Half Fire-Elemental 3/Sorcerer 2; select another fiery spell.

Rules topic updated with alignment changes and a new use for spellcraft.

Okay, last adventure gave me  a chance to see how the turning variant we're using works in low levels/gestalt. I think it's obvious it needs to be tweaked down, so I'm proposing the following changes:

- Turning is now a full round action.
- Quicken Turning gets banned, Empower Turning gets nerfed.
- Spontaneous Healing for clerics can be discarded. To be honest, with turning being strong healing there's no longer any need for this ability. It's redundant.

Agree? Disagree? Have any suggestions of your own? Speak up. This goes double for Merc and possibly Cor(I forget if your build gets any turning of noteworthy ability.), who may be impacted.  Balyss was admitted optimized towards turning, though anyone who has full or near full cleric turning can show how potent this variant is.

I think I'll have 1d6 or 2d6 of turning, but probably not past it.

Quicken Turning would use up your swift action, and you still can't turn twice in a round. Empower Turning is eh; probably the best turning feat that exists, but it still only goes towards turning. Only cleric-like chars would ever invest in it, since it's ridiculous to get it if you don't have a consistent turning progression, but these kinds of chars would outstrip anyone else turning-wise anyhow. Say you get 2-5 levels of turning at lvl20, while a cleric has his full 20. Compared to your 2d6-5d6, does it matter if he does 20d6 or 1.5*20d6? It's still overwhelming in comparison. In all honesty, this whole talk of nerfing sounds ridiculous to me since turning only works on undead and you're removing possible optimizations towards something this niche (and optimization here means you need to take otherwise-pointless feats in place of good ones). If turning gets nerfed, why would you remove spontaneous healing? I just don't see the point in any of it. Remember why you made turning use these rules instead of the original ones? Because it sucked and no one used it.

tl;dr This doesn't really affect me but I fail to see the point in making any changes.

To be fair, nobody used turn undead because nobody had it in any meaningful sense. Since it either works or doesn't depending on your level than a roll of the dice, it's a simple yes or no rather than a calculated risk to use. This method is better since with a saving throw even the most badass lich can roll a 1 vs the shittiest cleric ever.

That said, it is *very* good, and works in all situations as general purpose healing rather than just being a counter vs one specific creature type.

I'd suggest changing it to will negates rather than will half, so that it's more of a gamble to use rather than guaranteed damage. I'd also consider reducing or limiting the healing somehow - either healing for half, or only healing members of the faith/same alignment or somesuch.

Also! Rebuke undead is way better than Turn undead in core, whereas in this variant evil clerics get completely shafted compared to good clerics. Unless they're the sort of evil clerics who walk around with a horde of undead goons, but even then how does one acquire such a horde without using Rebuking to command them in the first place? So I'd be quite down with letting evil clerics take Rebuking as core rather than this variant.

My biggest problem here, the more I think about it, is really with how needed any change is. You probably know by now that I like to leave decent things alone and I'm not excited over houseruling something just because you can.

With that in mind, I would just like to ask what the intent behind having Turning in a game is for us. If it's to provide an alternate source of healing so that clerics can actually do something else with their spells, it's one thing. If it's to have a cool thing to use against the Undead rather than the weaksauce original Turning, that's another. Maybe there are other reasons, too. So I'd like to know what our goal for Turning is?

Those two reasons are the main reasons that I'm working with. It provides potent group healing, on a better scale than the typical cure x spells. It really fills the clerical healing niche, making spontaneous healing obsolete.  It also provides strong clerical firepower against undead, allowing clerics to smite them in a much more direct manner than the previous Turn Undead method.

It's that I think it's a little too good at it's task right now. It reams the hell out of the undead for a standard action, not even counting the hilarity of quicken turning, as well as providing powerful group healing. The goal is to tone it down a little bit and to better balance the ability. To that, toning down the turning booster feats is obvious. The level of power a quickened turning is insane in the economy of actions, making group healing possible while taking a full normal round of other actions.

I'm not sure how I want to do it yet, which is why I'm stirring up discussion. Making it a full round action is one possible solution, and I think the turning feats need to be adjusted in any event. Spontaneous Healing is an appendix of an ability now, serving a redundant purpose.

Re: Rebuke undead. I've been working on this behind the scenes, haven't said anything since it's a DM matter. None of you are going to get rebuke undead as of right now, so don't worry about it. It's all behind the curtain stuff.

Bonus content: The mace Balyss uses is called Lunarock, as you might know if you've read her stats. It's not a Sailor Moon reference in design, yet it ends up being one. http://www.wikimoon.org/index.php?title=Sailor_Moon_%26_the_Scouts:_Lunarock

I have no idea, but what the hell. She follows the Moon Goddess anyway.

What this proposal actually achieves, however, is leave the powerful turning option on the table but fuck up anyone trying to specialize in it. I like the idea of having options even if I don't actually use them myself. Essentially, if you think it's too strong go at the core of Turning, not at the bells and whistles that make it cool or another option for specialization.

And I'm probably unclear on what a full round action is, I often mix this up. Do you mean it's like a full attack, so you can't do anything else but it takes hold at the end of your turn, or that it would take effect at the start of your next round and any damage you take in the meantime breaks your concentration? If it's the latter, then there's no point in using it in battle. Certainly not for healing, if you want to heal someone right now. If it's the former, then in effect it means you lose a move action, and I just don't see why it tones anything down. Can you help me understand this?

Quote- Turning is now a full round action.
- Quicken Turning gets banned, Empower Turning gets nerfed.
- Spontaneous Healing for clerics can be discarded. To be honest, with turning being strong healing there's no longer any need for this ability. It's redundant.

I honestly don't see how this does quite so much to power it down. The main issue I think is scaling, so what you offer doesn't do much to really help.

The Cure spells will horribly lag behind simply because the turning's heal effect will generally target more characters and for more/comparable healing while also harming undead in the area to boot. This is because you have it set so turning increases by 1d6 each level, while cure spells increase by +1 each level and +d8 every -two- levels AND target only one person at a time.

If you make it so turning were d4 instead of d6, and improved every other level instead, it's a bit more of a toss-up between using turning for healing or a spell. If there are undead present, turning is obviously the better solution, otherwise it depends on the number of people injured for healing, and whether you have empowered turning. It'll actually start to be weaker option for healing after level 10 if you don't have empowered turning, remains pretty useful with it, and has the plus side of not using up spell slots, so it actually continues to be useful all throughout even if it starts lagging behind spells.

So my suggestion is basically:
1) Change from +d6/level to +d4/every other level.
2) Keep Empowered Turning as is, it's pretty much only worth it on a character who keeps up their turning progression if you make the above change.
3) Rather than get rid of quicken turning, why not make it so instead of using one turn attempt as a standard action, you can make it as a move action or burn two turn attempts to make it as a swift? It's slightly more restrictive than just making it a swift action, while still giving you a lot of options and feeling worthwhile.

Given that turning is fuel for all sorts of divine/devotion feats you should also consider the point where using turning to heal/burn undead stops being as appealing as using it for any of that stuff.

Point. I guess I'll say go with d6 every other level instead of d4s, since I didn't consider the decision of divine feats. Turning keeps up a bit better with spells if it's d6 vs d4, making it more of a decision whether to use it for healing/undead killing, or to burn for divine feats, and makes Empowered Turning more of a decision vs divine feats. But I do think the main problem is how it scales against spells right now, just being vastly superior due to that.

I agree in principle! If there is an issue here with 'too much healing', it comes from the core concept, not the addons. I do wonder if you can have too much healing, that aside, since a) if the party heals, it can adventure longer, and b) wands of CLW, every party buys them anyway, and c) innate powers are cooler than wands. I'd certainly want to have Balyss along on a normal adventure (ie not against undead) and see how it works, especially when she heals our enemies as well. Assuming she does this instead of hitting them with her mace/spells.

That aside, if the healing's too good to have, it can be capped like this, or how Eb proposed. It's really the same thing in the end. The radius can be limited too, although that would make the power less flashy. If the undead-slaying is too good, it can be dealt with as well (although then I'd probably just prefer to use a fireball so that a mook skeleton doesn't roll high and remains untouched). But, again, eliminating the means of specializing in a cool new option while leaving what makes it 'too good' intact is kinda pointless to me.

I'll sort out turning tonight, I let it lie the last week 'cause I had other things on my plate. Assuming that goes well, I'll also do quick sheet audits tonight to make sure everything adds up. After Eb's skirmish snafu I figure one couldn't hurt.

Comments regarding the Unseen Striker PrC:
-It doesn't advance Sneak Attack? The flavor text implies that it should, cause otherwise it's kind of weak for a skirmisher type? It's not like he's got Pounce/TWF, nor does the PrC seem aimed for such builds, so it seems a bit weak for the lack of it.
-Getting hit with a penalty special ability at level 1 (Cowardly) with nothing to gain is pretty harsh entry.
-Overwhelming Strike feels odd at level 3. Since it's a per level ability, it gives an immediate +3 bonus. Why not just have it at level 1 for +1 there, and have it increase normally from there? It's not like it's a great dip since it depends on level, and it -is- countered by the Cowardly ability.
-The bonus feats (Bounding Assault/Rapid Blitz) should have additional text similar to other classes bonus feats, an entry that says "You gain these feats even if you normally do not meet the prerequesites, but only so long as you wear light or no armor." Note that otherwise, Noel would not qualify for the BAB requirement of those feats.

Sneak Attack isn't directly progressed, but Overwhelming Assault is in the same vein as it. I'd count it as giving roughly equivalent to 3d6 sneak attack by level 10. You gain offense and offense that can be multiplied(Unlike sneak attack dice), but it's a little specific to set up. As for the placement, that's where it fit well in the progression. I could tweak it to level 1 easily enough.

I do agree it's a strange beast for a skirmishing class, but it ultimately focuses on defense more than offense.

Yeah, gaining those as bonus feats is on purpose. What you said is assumed but should be added; the  requirements for those feats make them difficult for anyone but pure fighters to get. I'll add that clarifying text.

From a pure mathy perspective, Overwhelming Assault is weaker to Sneak Attack actually.

SA increases by 1d6 every two levels. So every two levels, on average, you gain +3.5damage. OA gives you +2 damage every two levels in the PrC.

I can understand that the focus is defensive, but it still feels like the class needs to be boosted a little bit. I wouldn't recommend giving it an equal SA progression necessarily, maybe evey 3 levels instead of every 2, or something more to give it that defensive feel, but I do feel it needs a bit more. SA just happened to be what popped to my mind first.

I also still think it's inherently wrong to work to get into a PrC, and the first level you gain...a penalty. That's just really, really lame.

I would probably also suggest that it gives the Darkstalker feat from Lords of Madness somewhere in there.

QuoteDARKSTALKER
You have learned how to stalk and surprise creatures whose senses are very different from those of a humanoid.
Benefit: When you hide, creatures with blindsense, blindsight, scent, or tremorsense must make a Listen check or
a Spot check (whichever DC is higher) to notice you, just as sighted creatures would make Spot checks to detect you.
You cannot hide in plain sight unless you have that ability as a class feature. In addition, you can flank creatures
that have the all-around vision special quality.
Normal: Creatures with these senses do not need to make Spot or Listen checks to notice other creatures within
range. Creatures with all-around vision can't be flanked.

Given that the only defense focus right now -is- hiding, it'd be pretty lame if it can so easily be beaten by a good number of magical/high-level creatures.

I actually figure anyone who devote this much effort to Hide will already have Darkstalker. I don't think I'll add it to the class, though anyone who took it would be strongly recommended to. The same way a cleric might be strongly recommended to take Divine Metamagic in a game that allows it, y'know?

Tweaked the class and added some minor sneak attack, going to tidy up the epic progression.

So since we're going to Hell and all, this is my prep:

1) Halfway to Croger, I'll realize that I don't really know Josa's plan for getting to Avernus. Therefore, I'll turn around and go ask him about just what he intends to do, what sort of spells and information he might need there, and is there a part of it the Temple of Ilmater could help with, perhaps?

2) Right after, I'll go and see Croger, this time for real. Assuming he is around, I would like to ask for his opinion on our options, both before going and for while there. If he doesn't volunteer it on his own, I would like to ask him if he could reserve a Sending and/or Scrying to try first thing tomorrow morning on our behalf. If Josa hopes to score transportation this way as well, I'll ask Croger about this, too.

3) I would like to learn from Sylvie about the sort of things we might see in Avernus, be it locals or local conditions. I probably wouldn't remember very much, so the very basics would help. It would be nice to know if they have normal weather and gravity, not to drink the local water, whether disease and poison are a serious concern, if the enemies would have any basic immunities (DR, SR, energy resistance). Just enough to be able to form a strategy (grapple yes, unarmed punch with fire no). Ideally, I'd have Andrea and Simmer sit in on this so that we're all in sync about the best options, but if they have their own sources of information that's fine too.

3a) I wouldn't actually buy anything based on the above, because I'm me, but if Andrea worries about any local hazards or Simmer wants something to actually harm the enemies, they could use the chance to get something useful? Andrea might borrow that silver longsword again, whichever.

Josa's plan is fairly simple: 1. Get two scrolls of planeshift and a couple of sendings. 2. Coordinate with the others and find a meet-up spot. 3. Get the fuck out of there. More elaborate means of work aren't viable - Josa doesn't have the income to buy more than a few 1000 mark+ scrolls. He expects some traveling will be unavoidable, thus stocking the bag of holding with food and supplies. He suggests you bring lots of water as well, and if you can get scrolls of create water that would be grand. More than food, water is likely the going concern. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Croger's opinion is that you have a great trial and greater suffering ahead. He recommends that you prepare as best you can, and accept that personal sacrifice may be the only way to victory. Spend the time you can in communion with Ilmater, and be prepared to take on the mantle of sacrifice should it be required. He'll be willing to cast a scrying or a sending on your behalf.

> roll 1d20+7 Sylvie
* Hatbot --> "Kotono rolls 1d20+7 Sylvie and gets 20." [1d20=13]

Sylvie provides the following information about Avernus:

It's normal gravity with a strong alignment towards law and evil. Drinking the water is bad - most of it is Styx water, and that functions as a memory eraser. Bad idea. Bad. Bad. Bad.  Poison and disease are a serious concern; Avernus is an eternal warground for the Blood War. You can run into anything, but most of what you'll fight will be devils. Avoid fire, they're immune. They're resistant to most elements except electricity.  Silver is useful, as is anything Good or Chaotic. One of the big priorities will be to find cover - the sky of Avernus belches forth lethal fireballs down, with a vicious desire to immolate living beings.

Would Sylvie know what other ways exist for leaving Avernus, short of Plane Shift? And if she mentions portals, does she know of any ways to locate them, magically or otherwise?

She'd know Avernus has a lot of portals, but not concrete locations. That's the other main way of travel to and from.

Any chance of recruiting Olan or Brent for this? Never hurts to have more paladins when storming hell, and Olan might have a soft spot for Branna since he's spent some time as one of his students?

You could try. Admittedly you'd need to do some fast talking to get someone to come with you to Hell, friend or no.

Turning. Sorry for taking so long, I got sidetracked and it slipped between the wickets.  I'm going to scale it back to d6/2 levels for healing and see how that works.  I'm also going to use Merc's suggestion about Quicken Turning.

Levelling up options ahead for NPCs. Feedback welcome.

Josa: Candymancer 1 and Elf Paragon 3. Those are slam dunks. I'm not sure on his feat quite yet, I need to review. For later levels he needs something to fill the other side of his gestalt and I have no fucking idea on which to choose. A selection follows, let me know what you think!

Swashbuckler

Pros: Josa would be hliarious as a swashbuckler and he already has a rapier!

Cons: It's horrible for him in all aspects.

Hexblade

Pros: It's something different, gives him a bit of versatility. Arcane Resistance isn't a bad pickup.

Cons: It doesn't stand out and it's not that useful. Class is weak on it's own merits.

Marshal

Pros: Auras would help him support the others. Josa's speeches having a concrete effect would be giggleworthy.

Cons: Josa's speeches having a concrete effect would be groanworthy.

Ranger

Pros: Elfy. Gives his saves and HP a boost.

Cons: Weapon style is wasted on him.

Fighter

Pros: Good synergistic filler.

Cons: Bland.

Sylvie: Factotum 4 and Monk 3. She puts her stat point in intelligence and carries on.

Simmer: Outsider 2 and Sorcerer 3. She picks up Practiced Spellcaster to make her spells suck less. If she seriously starts using bows/rays she may dip into fighter to get precise shot and that ilk.

Neveril: Sirine 5//Bard 5. She may go into the siren PrC form Savage Species at some point or start that paragon class. I need to sit down and get her shit together tonight.

Balyss: Continues taking her classes. She's a dual caster so it's all good.

Josa the Barbarian! One day he could take that magical raging prc, too!

Marshal sounds fair for Josa. Sylvie should be a barbarian or a ninja or something cool instead of a monk because there's far too many of them.

Barbarian Josa...hahhahhahahahhahahahahhahahahahhahahahahahhahahahahahahahhaha!

Tempting but I think I'll pass on that one. <_< Marshal could work.

I'd prefer not to do ninja since I hate sudden strike with a virulent passion. Barbarian could be amusing but it doesn't fit her either. Maybe Swashbuckler for the level 3 int to damage and free weapon finesse, but it is a bit cheesy.

Just houserule ninjas to get sneak attack. Or go with spellthief?

Honestly I'd just rather see an NPC do something that isn't already being done by two PCs. We're all monked out.

No to spellthief, don't wanna deal with what that class entails.

Ninja looks mediocre even if I change it to sneak attack, but it's not an abyss of suck or anything.

Maybe Savant from Dragon Compendium?

Sure why not? Hell, she's going to be PrCing into that Exemplar thing you've mentioned so I guess it hardly matters at this stage if she tosses more monk levels onto the fire. Starting something new for 2 levels is pretty pointless unless it's a good dip.

Exemplar is late entry, so she has a bunch of levels to play with.

How about something like an urban ranger, then? She can take the archery feat and be competent at range, just like a monk's flurry does for her in melee. It's not particularly good for her, but she's a jack of all trades so it sorta works?

What's Urban Ranger in?

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#rangerVariantUrbanRanger

It's basically a variant that allows Sylvie to excel at what she does best (local knowledge, etc), gain some useful skills/feats tailored for her job and the spells, if she gets that far, are also thematically fitting IMO. As an extra bonus, favored enemies could, along with that scout/ranger feat, allow her to do precision damage to enemies normally exempt from it, if she ever cares for that sort of thing.

Mmm, maybe. I'll think about it and decide if she branches out or stays the course or what. Lots to consider now.

Okay, let's talk about loot. We have a lot of discussion about this and disagreement, so I want a consensus on how you guys wish to deal with loot in the future.  This entire argument wasn't fun for me and at least a few other people. If we're going to argue and not have fun, we're doing this whole gaming for fun thing way wrong.

First of all, the ki straps issue is closed, dead, done. It stands as decided.

Second of all, I'd like you guys to figure out some sort of system for loot. I don't care what it is as long as it's consistent and everyone can live with it. It doesn't need to be the same as the precedent so far if that's your choice. Consider this your instructions to post and get a loot system devised. If you guys can't agree on one, I reserve the right to decide myself. I really don't want to, but it's infinitely better than arguments.

Third of all, I know at least a few people were upset here. I'll leave it to each of you to comment on this and present what you're feeling, but I'd like you guys to talk this out. If we're going to get into a situation where there are hard feelings, it's simply not acceptable. I dunno about the rest of you, but I'm running this game to have fun. Hurt feelings and unhappiness are not a part of that. We're supposed to be adults who can communicate clearly, so let's act like it, okay?

Fourth of all, I was not happy about this entire affair, if that wasn't clear. If someone's upset about something another player does, I'd like for that person to take a breath and then talk to the other player in a mature fashion to work out their issues. We're all friends here.

To be honest, I really didn't think it was that big a deal you're making it out to be.

Eb just happened to do the loot this time with the more familiar method we usually use in past games, and Yuth pointed out that wasn't the system we'd been using up to now, and that really is a fair argument. And while we argued over which method to use, I didn't really get the impression anybody was as upset as you're pointing it out (except perhaps Yuth over getting shafted), just arguing over the merits of the systems.

Eb and I both were of the opinion that while we prefer the even split method, we didn't really care enough to argue and would be willing to stick with the precendent, if only until someone was willing to take a hit. If someone's willing to take a hit, we can switch, if not, we'll stick it out and try to make this work.

I'd pointed out in chat that most of the work with this method is honestly on you to not give something particularly unbalanced to us. The loot in this case was pretty balanced I think. We each took what, a 175gp hit to make sure Wayland's not 3k gp in debt? Josa took the most at about 1000gp, and really, by this system he'll almost always be the one taking the brunt of it when we get loot.

When we gave Frozen Oath to Branna, nobody really went "Oh no, we gave the expensive magic sword to the NPC, now we're down money we should have for this level! Unfair!" We just went along, and some adventures later we got the red feather sword and the blood thing, and we've had other adventures where we probably got more money than we might have if say I'd kept Frozen Oath for my own use.

I'm happy enough leaving the loot balance issues to you and just enjoying the game. I'm of the opinion you've been taking these things into consideration, and if you haven't, you certainly would now.

That said, if the consensus after all this is that we do want to switch, Eb's the only one that hasn't really gotten something that I can recall, so if loot comes up where something would go to him I don't think the hit should come from him. I'm willing to take the hit if it's something Andrea wants.

Quote from: Merc on March 12, 2011, 12:07:14 AM
To be honest, I really didn't think it was that big a deal you're making it out to be.

When I get PMs of people being unhappy, it is. To be fair I know you aren't aware of those.

QuoteI'd pointed out in chat that most of the work with this method is honestly on you to not give something particularly unbalanced to us. The loot in this case was pretty balanced I think. We each took what, a 175gp hit to make sure Wayland's not 3k gp in debt? Josa took the most at about 1000gp, and really, by this system he'll almost always be the one taking the brunt of it when we get loot.

Josa brings up a tangential point. I'm surprised you guys have stuck with his arrangement so far. I figured by now you'd have wanted to renegotiate.

I don't have a lot to say to yours, sorry. <_<

I've talked about this a bit with Dune, and thought I would share with you my reasoning on just why I freaked out so much.

In the ten years I've been playing this game, for all of the rules we changed, twisted, or outright ignored, one thing we could always agree on was loot. If we came across something and nobody wanted it, we would sell it. If someone did want it, it was theirs, no questions asked. This was done for the betterment of the group as a whole.

When I was told that taking the ki straps would put me some 3,560.71 marks into debt, I was thunderstruck. I don't use that word lightly; I was literally frozen for nearly half a minute in absolute shock. Not by the amount of debt, but by the level of greed I felt was shown by those who are supposed to be my friends. I was being penalized so they could still make their paychecks. The more it was discussed, the angrier I grew. It felt very much to me that the players around me had decided to set a precedent of paying for goods found in our adventures, and had decided to use me as a sacrificial lamb. The level of greed astounded me. It would be one thing if one of you had volunteered to do this, I really wouldn't be so upset, but you volunteered me for it instead. It's not your money, it's mine...and you seem to be fine with that. "We want a change, but we don't want to suffer the consequences of that change right now. We'll use this guy, he's much more convenient."

If that is to apply, let it apply to everyone.

Merc's feather was a gift, as was the blood that Aaeru drank, so the rule does not apply, but I insist that Branna receive a resurrection so that he can pay his debt for Frozen Oath, an artifact that we received from Lady Moongal as part of payment for services rendered. I asked Dune about the value of the blade, even suggested a price of 10 or 15,000, he said it cost "a lot." On further analysis, the value is anywhere from 15-22,000 gold, due to its historic nature.

If you want my opinion on how to work with loot, we should stop looking at each individual piece as a paycheck, and start looking at what the gear can do for us. I expect to buy gear from a merchant, an enchanter, a weaponsmith. Not from the pool of items that we just stole from a tomb or whathaveyou. After all, money spends very poorly when you are dead.

QuoteIn the ten years I've been playing this game, for all of the rules we changed, twisted, or outright ignored, one thing we could always agree on was loot. If we came across something and nobody wanted it, we would sell it. If someone did want it, it was theirs, no questions asked. This was done for the betterment of the group as a whole.

I think it needs to be highlighted that there's a culture difference between that group and this group and we all ran afoul of that.

Quote from: Yuthirin on March 12, 2011, 02:47:18 AMMerc's feather was a gift, as was the blood that Aaeru drank, so the rule does not apply, but I insist that Branna receive a resurrection so that he can pay his debt for Frozen Oath, an artifact that we received from Lady Moongal as part of payment for services rendered. I asked Dune about the value of the blade, even suggested a price of 10 or 15,000, he said it cost "a lot." On further analysis, the value is anywhere from 15-22,000 gold, due to its historic nature.

A few relevant points here. First of all, about Frozen Oath:

> I don't have the price handy offhand is what that meant. Hold on a sec and I'll dig it up.
<Wayland> ok
> Frozen Oath: Longsword+1. Frozen Oath deals 1d2 points of cold damage on each strike. In addition on any successful strike with Frozen Oath that deals damage to a target in combat, the wielder heals 1d8+1 hit points. 4,000 GP.
> To be fair it's criminally underpriced, that was the price I gave it when I started DMing in Balmuria 1 for 3.5.
<Wayland> That's it?
<Wayland> Yeesh
> I'd put it as a +2/+3 weapon.
<Wayland> At least!
> Realistically, which is 8k to...15k? 16k? I'd have to check.
> Go ahead and just paste these relevant lines into your reply if you like.
<Wayland> That's not counting the fact that it was used in the liberation of Balmuria from Devils, yes?
> Yeah. There's a lotta history with that blade. Shamal made it from some ambient magical energies back in the day, Lyselle used it and eventually retired with it when her player left the game.
<Wayland> So, it's 15-16k, plus the fact that it's a great historical artifact
<Wayland> so
> Ballpark. Lemme check how vampiric is priced in the MIC.
<Wayland> I'd put the value at 22k
<Wayland> because history can't be quantified in the book
> Vampiric is an extra 1d6 healing and it's a +2 modifier.

To be fair, I was about 99.99% sure you guys wouldn't sell it so I didn't care much about the price anyway. Second of all, a resurrection isn't a sure thing IC. It's been over a week since Branna passed, which means he's through the Well of Souls. Andrea's running into the same thing with Brent...but I digress. To quote from the world info post:

QuoteIt is known that mortals are easier to revive while they are within the Well of Souls. The reasoning is not entirely clear, but speculation is that they still have some ties to the mortal world, making reaching them less difficult. Resurrection magics are changing in account of this, but these spells are still adapting.  But attempts are clear in that mortal souls within the Well of Souls do not usually appear opposed to coming back.

Once a mortal soul passes to it's afterlife, it is far harder to resurrect. Souls that have reached the Outer Planes are seldom willing to leave the Heavens, or able to freely leave the Realms Below.  Further, the souls that pass into a divine realm very rarely revive unless it is the will of their patron doing so, usually through a cleric or other agent seeing to the revival. Calls from other divinities are usually ignored. In more detail, a soul that has been absorbed into an Outer Plane  can be revived. A petitioner can be revived as well, as can outsiders with no memory of their past life. Those who transcend mortality or retain their self after death cannot be revived; they have become something different and left behind their mortal shell.

Anyway, reviving Branna isn't a sure thing by any means. A nice idea to be certain, but not one that's automatic.

Okay, I have shit to do today so I'll post later, but all this crap about being greedy and forcing Branna to pay his debt? Fuck off. Branna works for Wayland - he goes where Yuth says and does what Yuth says, so that sword belonged to you as much as if Wayland had been carrying it himself. So don't act like you haven't benefitted.

Yeah, civil tone, talk like adults, but I'm offended by that and I'm not going to pretend like I'm not. The loot system isn't worth fighting about for me, but that sort of attitude is.

Quote from: AnastasiaI think it needs to be highlighted that there's a culture difference between that group and this group and we all ran afoul of that.

I actually discussed this with Dune in PM after I posted back, but one thing I noted was that I have played with both loot systems before, but by far I'm most used to the one Eb used for loot and I honestly hadn't even noticed we'd switched until you said anything.

Also, I do think you're making us out to look greedier than we really were. Almost immediately after you pointed out what we'd done, I chimed in that you were right and Eb said he was going to adjust the loot because we'd set a precedent of a different loot system. The argument that followed was specifically over the loot system, NOT Wayland and the ki straps, and again, it was mentioned that if we switched, we'd do so when someone was willing to take the hit.

Finally, again keep in mind that you didn't really chime in anything earlier when we were mentioning loot or Eb did the calculation, you just gave the accusation, and you vanished right after. I really don't think it's fair to judge us based on that if you didn't really pay attention to anything besides "Hey! They're cheating me out of my money! I'm going to tell them off and walk off in a huff!" and then ignore the discussion that followed as a consideration on our behalf.

As an added note, it's also worth pointing out that it's very likely my fault this whole mess occured as the last time someone grabbed loot was the Balyss/undead thing where I did the same loot system Eb did (I don't count Jumanji as nobody kept anything except Janson and he traded in an item of equal value): http://www.soulriders.net/forum/index.php?topic=101156.msg1019188#msg1019188

So, yeah. Sorry?

QuoteFinally, again keep in mind that you didn't really chime in anything earlier when we were mentioning loot or Eb did the calculation, you just gave the accusation, and you vanished right after. I really don't think it's fair to judge us based on that if you didn't really pay attention to anything besides

To be honest, I was watching what was going on in the chat, but I honestly thought it was a joke.

Mmm, SR ate my post just now. I'll recap.

-The attitude wasn't cool, and neither was stating things via fiat and walking away rather than discussing things. It sets a bad precedent and creates a bad atmosphere. Not cool at all.

-Loot scheme-wise, Merc is right in that Josa took a hit over the shield that time. I would also consider gifts to be defined as any item we cannot sell or otherwise liquidate without offending the giver, which Frozen Oath would fall under, being a unique weapon given to Wayland by his enamored benefactor.

-But we are starting with a clean slate from now on, and so, because Dune wants us to have an agreed-upon loot scheme, I'm proposing one here:

A) We renegotiate our contract with Josa. Considering our earnings, we either sue for a larger percentage or a larger monthly fee. 40gp on retainer is rather ridiculous with 12k in earnings over two weeks.
B) It still bothers me how abusable a system is in which people can claim things without compensation. Normally, we do a risk/profit assessment on whether we want something, and that drives our claiming. Do we want something more than someone else in the party does? Will we be tempted to sell it next level for a cooler item, and would that cause bad blood from people who also wanted it but lost to us in the claiming process? It's just too bothersome. If we find a belt of con +4, who will want it? Who will get it? So let's keep to the normal distribution.
C) Exceptions can be made. First, anything is usable until we actually return home and can sell it. Second, there's the mutual party fund. If we need to ID something, we just take that out of the overall amount. If we want a Wand of CLW (and we really want one, guys), we can do it the same way rather than make the paladin who can use it fork over the cash herself. Similarly, if we land something too expensive to be claimed and repaid by any party member that we believe will help us (or we just want to be nice), we can agree to make it that person's share of the loot on a case by case basis.

It's worked for us throughout many games, and it's a better system than anything else I have seen in use. If I can have people approve it, we can move this all past us. Unless someone really doesn't want to?

Okay, posting for real now. We need to decide on a loot system? I'm in favour of the one where you have to pay for what you get. Quite simply, it's fair. If someone doesn't get much benefit from the loot that we scavenge, they shouldn't be penalised for that. Paying for magic items isn't a penalty, it's a matter of course. If someone gets a cool item in loot, uses it for a few adventures, then when it becomes obsolete they sell it and buy something better, they're advantaged over the rest of the party.

In terms of items that are hard to put a price on but are undeniably awesome and better than anything else on the table, it's easy enough just for the recipient to waive their share for the adventure involved and take the item.

Gifts shouldn't count at all for any loot calculations, so the onus will remain on Dune to balance those as they appear, but I'm certain doing so would be vastly easier than having to balance the contents of every treasure chest and the inventory of every NPC we might murder.

So this doesn't devolve into an endlessly circling debate, why don't we all just vote on the system we prefer and then go with the majority and let the subject drop?

edit: Also I see Cor has posted much the same while I was typing, but I'm not redoing this. We seem to agree.

I personally don't care, I think both systems are good as long as the DM is aware of how things are likely to play out in the distribution of loot. The normal distribution itself is not without flaws, so it's not inherently better:
a) Cor mentioned the 'exceptions'-case, where we get something incredibly expensive compared to rest of loot. When do we decide if an exception is made? How in debt does someone have to go to make it an exception?
b) What if a reward is just a single item that someone wants, there's no gold involved? "Oh, well I want this, so I'm going to pay you guys for the right to use this item as part of my share"? That just seems kind of awkward.
c) I don't really see why an exception is made for gifts though, if it's loot, it's loot? If nobody's claiming it and it goes onto the cabinet and/or window display, sure, it doesn't count, but if one of us is using it, why wouldn't it count?

Really, I'm fine with whatever gets picked, and I am more used to this method since we tend to use it in other games, but this talk about the other system being inherently more abusable is also silly.

Quote from: Merc on March 12, 2011, 02:37:20 PMReally, I'm fine with whatever gets picked, and I am more used to this method since we tend to use it in other games, but this talk about the other system being inherently more abusable is also silly.

This part I  agree with, insofar as my role in loot is concerned. I'm the one who balances out how much money you might get, the items that appear and any possible gifts.  If I really want someone to get something or think they're due, they're gonna get something. I also can compensate for whatever system is chosen to make it flow better and try and keep people balanced. At the end of the day I make sure things balance out, I don't think the loot system is -that- big a deal as long as all of you can deal with it.

Quote from: Merc on March 12, 2011, 02:37:20 PM
b) What if a reward is just a single item that someone wants, there's no gold involved? "Oh, well I want this, so I'm going to pay you guys for the right to use this item as part of my share"? That just seems kind of awkward.

This is really my point exactly, without being nearly as inflammatory as I usually am.

Quotec) I don't really see why an exception is made for gifts though, if it's loot, it's loot? If nobody's claiming it and it goes onto the cabinet and/or window display, sure, it doesn't count, but if one of us is using it, why wouldn't it count?

Really, I'm fine with whatever gets picked, and I am more used to this method since we tend to use it in other games, but this talk about the other system being inherently more abusable is also silly.

I'd like to propose a new system, with the following example. Say we just found a +4 Con belt. It's valued at 20k. Eating my share of the loot, that puts me at 15k in debt. Then the next piece of gear comes along, and I could use it. But I'm still in debt, because we don't make money that fast. So I pass on it. Nobody else wants it, so it gets sold. Now I'm pissed at everyone else because I really could have used that gear, and it would have helped a lot, but it got sold instead.

Now say the same belt drops, and again everyone wants it. Instead of going into debt, we all roll for it. I don't win it, but Janson does. I'm jealous, sure, but not really upset, because I had as equal a chance to get that belt as everyone else.

In cases where the item is useful for only one person, such as stealth gear or something that augments bardic music/knowledge, that person chooses whether they will take the item, or not. If so, great, we all benefit. If not, great, we sell it, divvy up the gold, and we all benefit. Small stuff like potions, scrolls, etc. would g in the group loot in Josa's closet, available to everyone. Like if we found a cache of potions of Heal, say six of them. They're valuable, but we're not gonna carry around all of them at once. We carry maybe one or two, use them as needed when someone needs one, and carry on.

Of course, this method depends on honesty, but none of us are dicks like that, and nobody's playing an evil character. I think this would work out very well for us.

Quote from: YuthirinNow I'm pissed at everyone else because I really could have used that gear, and it would have helped a lot, but it got sold instead.

Yeah, this is the part that bothers me; getting pissed off. There hasn't been a single piece of loot in the game thus far that's been useful for Janson, but it hasn't bothered me because hey, I can just buy something if I need it. If the big ticket items get taken for free, there's a smaller amount of treasure left over, and thus Janson can afford less cool stuff of his own - the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

You've got your +4 con belt, why are you getting pissed off that other people want enough money to maybe buy their own +4 stat items some day?

Anyway, it's clear we're veering into the endlessly circling debate territory since Merc has no opinion, but as I said at the outset, I don't care. I really genuinely don't give a single shit about how we calculate loot. I just want to play the game. Honestly? Last night I was perfectly willing to just accept Yuth's system and move on, but waking up to being called greedy put me in a combative mood. Since most of us are apathetic on the issue, lets just go with Yuth's method and drop it. It's not my preference, but the issue is just not going to get resolved unless we pick and I don't want to waste days and effort on this debate, I just want to play the game.

Now can we go kill some monsters or do something that's actually fun?

Well, I apologize for calling you greedy. It wasn't my intent to offend you, it was really just how I felt. I felt like I was personally under attack, because this type of thing hadn't really, to my knowledge, happened yet. I honestly felt like you had all targeted me.

So yeah, I apologize for the venom in my first post.

Note to self: Josa needs spending, money adjustment and a level six feat. He's done otherwise. Tweak candymancer's DCs a little bit.

Sheet audit time! These are to try and catch any mistakes and help make sure you guys have your shit straight. I'm working under the assumption all your leveling up is done. If not and I harp on something that's wrong because of that, say so.

Andrea's first because her sheet posted first.

- On calculating your to hit with your falchion, I'm coming up with +12 instead of +13 at you list. 6 points of BAB, 4 points of strength, 1 point from weapon focus and 1 point from a +1 weapon equals 12.

- What order did you take your class levels in? I wanna quickly review your saves but that impacts how they calculate out.

- In your summary you note you use detect evil as a spell. This isn't quite accurate, you use it as a spell-like ability. The impact of this is admittedly minuscule.

- Your charisma based skills aren't adjusted for your new charisma modifier, being one under what they should be.

- You have one rank of intimidate but that's your selected skill with adaptive learning. Planning on raising it later?

- With your new charisma you have a second 1st level paladin spell. Remember paladins work entirely off charisma for spellcasting by houserule.

Janson next!

- In your spell-like abilities section, note how many times per day you can use those SLAs.

Everything else looks good. I always feel awkward with Janson's since he tends not to make mistakes so I get this really short post, then huge ones for others. Oh well.

Now Wayland! Bear in mind I'm still a little shaky with psionic stuff, so correct me if I'm wrong.

- The math is below, but your fort save is one below what it should be. It should be +9, not +8. The trip-up comes at level 4. This is when you go over to psychic warrior, which gives +2 fort at level 1. However monk rises by +1 to all three saves at that level, so what I'm guessing happened is that you used that and forgot to factor in the +2 from psychic warrior.

Math:

-Your speed should be 50ft, not 40ft. The speed bonus for monk rises to 20ft at level 6. EDIT: Also note for that every 10ft you are over 30ft speed, you gain a +4 bonus to jump. So right now you have a +8 bonus to jump checks, add that in.

- You need to invest a skill point into autohypnosis to use it, it's trained only. Feel free to retrain a point into it if you want(Assuming you've done skills for the level up already, if not feel free to just add one in with your normal level.)

- You can use stunning fist 6 times a day, equal to your monk level, not 2 times a day as noted on your sheet.

Aaeru time!

- Could you walk me through how you determine your diplo total? There's enough mods in play that I want to make sure I have them all.

Honestly I don't see much wrong with your sheet. There's just so much going on with VoP and gestalt that it takes a bit of time to work through it. No big though, I didn't notice anything afoul.

Quote from: Anastasia on March 13, 2011, 05:34:37 PM- On calculating your to hit with your falchion, I'm coming up with +12 instead of +13 at you list. 6 points of BAB, 4 points of strength, 1 point from weapon focus and 1 point from a +1 weapon equals 12.

Hrm...I can't think of where the extra +1 comes from either. I had just added +1 for the level's BAB, so I must have made the mistake last level-up since I'd been using +12 last level (whoops!). I'll edit.

Quote from: Anastasia on March 13, 2011, 05:34:37 PM- What order did you take your class levels in? I wanna quickly review your saves but that impacts how they calculate out.

1)Pldn/Bard: [FRW:+200/+022]>[FRW:+222]
2)Pldn/Bard: [FRW:+100/+011]>[FRW:+111]
3)Pldn/Bard: [FRW:+011/+100]>[FRW:+111]
4)Pldn/Prgn: [FRW:+000/+002]>[FRW:+002]
5)Pldn/Prgn: [FRW:+111/+001]>[FRW:+111]
6)Hllrv/Prgn: [FRW:+002/+110]>[FRW:+112]

Totals: [FRW:+669] + Abilities [+302] + Dvn Grace [+555] = [F+14,R+11,W+16]

My attack bonus may go down by one, but my reflex goes up by one~! (I'll edit)

Quote from: Anastasia on March 13, 2011, 05:34:37 PM- In your summary you note you use detect evil as a spell. This isn't quite accurate, you use it as a spell-like ability. The impact of this is admittedly minuscule.

I'll edit it.

Quote from: Anastasia on March 13, 2011, 05:34:37 PM- Your charisma based skills aren't adjusted for your new charisma modifier, being one under what they should be.

I always miss something when modifying a score that changes lots of little things. Fixing. =/

Quote from: Anastasia on March 13, 2011, 05:34:37 PM- You have one rank of intimidate but that's your selected skill with adaptive learning. Planning on raising it later?

Team Bimbo lacks the intellect/skill points to boost it as much as I'd like! But yeah, unless I decide on something I want to suffer to boost it, it's going to be going up very slowly.

Quote from: Anastasia on March 13, 2011, 05:34:37 PM- With your new charisma you have a second 1st level paladin spell. Remember paladins work entirely off charisma for spellcasting by houserule.

Ah right. One more spell coming up~

Quote from: Merc on March 13, 2011, 07:24:56 PMTeam Bimbo lacks the intellect/skill points to boost it as much as I'd like! But yeah, unless I decide on something I want to suffer to boost it, it's going to be going up very slowly.

Do what Aaeru did and shack up with a good aligned fey. Seemed to work for her.

>_>

Looking at Yuth's saves, got a different result than you, Ko:

Level 1: Took Monk/Fighter. Monk gives +2/+2/+2. Fighter gives +2/+0/+0. Gestalt is +2/+2/+2

Level 2: Monk 2/Fighter 2. Monk is +3/+3/+3. That's an improvement of +1/+1/+1.
Fighter gives +3/+0/+0. That's an improvement of +1/+0/+0. So the gestalt is +1/+1/+1

Level 3: Monk 3/Fighter 3. Monk is +3/+3/+3. That's an improvement of +0/+0/+0.
Fighter gives +3/+1/+1. That's an improvement of +0/+1/+1. So gestalt is +0/+1/+1.

Level 4: Monk 4/PW1. Monk is +4/+4/+4. That's an improvement of +1/+1/+1.
PW gives +2/+0/+0. It's level 1, so improvement is also +2/+0/+0.
Comparing, gestalt would be +2/+1/+1 as fort is better for the psychic warrior level, but ref/will improve better on monk side.

Level 5: Monk 5/PW2. Monk is +4/+4/+4 for an improvement of +0/+0/+0. PW2 is +3/+0/+0 for an improvement of +1/+0/+0. Gestalt improvement is +1/+0/+0.

Level 6: Monk 6/PW3. Monk is +5/+5/+5 for an improvement of +1/+1/+1. PW3 is +3/+1/+1 for an improvement of +0/+1/+1. Gestalt improvement is +1/+1/+1.

Summary:
1) +2/+2/+2
2) +1/+1/+1
3) +0/+1/+1
4) +2/+1/+1
5) +1/+0/+0
6) +1/+1/+1

Sum total for class modifiers: +7/+6/+6 (Fort/Ref/Will)

Adding in ability score modifiers (+2/+3/+3): +9/+9/+9

Comparing with yours, Ko: You added +0/+0/+0 for level 3 instead...

Sure thing!

Diplomacy: 5ranks +2bluff synergy +2sense motive synergy +2perfection bonus/Sacred Vow +2circumstances bonus/Nymph's Kiss +3charisma modifier =16 total

Anything relevant from the Vow of Poverty (and other stuff I took) is listen down in Notes in shorthand, which I hope helps.

Thanks Cor!

---A Guide On How Saves Work In Gestalt---

Curious as how to saves in gestalt work? Worried your numbers might be off? I'm here to help! Let's start with what gestalt says about how saves work. Oh, and remember this is just talking about base save bonuses. It doesn't factor in the boosts from attributes, feats or class features. Those are added in after all this is determined and are irrelevant to this.

QuoteBase Saving Throw Bonuses

For each save bonus, choose the better progression from the two classes. For example, a 1st-level gestalt fighter/wizard would have base saving throw bonuses of Fortitude +2, Reflex +0, Will +2—taking the good Fortitude save from the fighter class and the good Will save from the wizard class.

Makes sense so far? You choose the best saves from both classes and take them. In this example, a fighter has first level base save bonuses of fort+2, reflex+0 and will+0 while the wizard has fort+0, reflex+0 and will+2. This fighter//wizard takes the +2 fort from fighter and the +2 will from wizard to get fort+2, ref+0 and will+2 for this level up. Not bad.  This is the easiest part to figure out, since level one is clear and simple. Things get a little trickier when you start to combine classes past first level, especially when you multiclass.

Let's say next level he decides that fighter was just a dip and wants to take ranger 1 and wizard 2. This makes him a fighter 1/ranger 1//wizard 2. His base save bonuses are fort+2, reflex+0 and will+2 from last level. Checking ranger, he sees that he gets fort+2, reflex+2 and will+0, while wizard 3 grants fort+0, reflex+0, and will+3. Remember that this doesn't mean he gains +3 to his base will save, but that the value rose by one. This doesn't change in gestalt. In other words, a level two wizard gains a +1 save bonus to will. Okay, so you look at that and you combine them again. You get fort+2, reflex+2 and will+1 for your base save bonuses for level 2. You add these to the previous values of fort+2, reflex+0 and will+2 from the last level for a grand total of fort+4, reflex+2 and will+3. With me so far?

Next level he decides to stay the course. It's time for ranger 2 and wizard 3! He's a fighter 1/ranger 2//wizard 3 gestalt character. His base save bonuses are fort+4, reflex+2 and will+3. Ranger 3 grants fort+3, reflex+3 and will+0, while wizard 3 grans fort+1, reflex+1 and will+3. In other words, ranger 2 gives a +1 bonus to fortitude and reflex, while wizard 3 gives a +1 bonus to fortitude and reflex! So what do you do now? You take the best benefits and in this case there's no difference. You -don't- add the base save bonuses the same level up grants like that. Normally you add all base save bonuses together, but with gestalt you take the best one each level instead and THEN you add up your base save bonuses. So no matter how you slice this one, he gains +1 to fortitude and reflex this level, for a total of fortitude+5, reflex+3 and will+3.

So our rangerfighterwizard decides to go full retard and dip sorcerer as well, while keeping with his wizard levels for level four. This makes him a fighter 1/ranger 2/sorcerer 1//wizard 4 as well as someone with crippling MAD. That aside, sorcerer 1 grants fort+0, reflex+0 and will+2, while wizard 4 grants fort+1, reflex+1 and will+4. So you select the best - while wizard raises will by one, sorcerer raises it by two. The others gain nothing, so you take the sorcerer bonus for a gain of fort+0, reflex+0 and will+2 this level, and for a grand total of fortitude+5, reflex+3 and will+5.

In summary:

1. Look at the classes you're taking at this level up.
2. Take the highest save values from both classes.
3. If both sides boost a save at that level, you go with the higher one. If they're the same, like a +1 boost on both sides, you simply take the +1. You don't add these together.
4. Now you add any save bonuses this level to your base save bonus.
5. You're done. Double check your math, it's easy to make mistakes with these numbers flying around and they can be hard to catch.

Notes:

1. Remember, always take the better progression and apply that. This is the big rule of thumb with gestalt.  You don't add in a lesser progression from the same level - getting +1 bab from both sides of your gestalt doesn't give you +2 bab that level, nor does getting +2 and +1 fort from both sides of the gestalt give you +3 fort that level.
2. Obviously this can be gamed if you plan things out with your multiclassing. Saves tend to be high in gestalt anyway, so while I prefer if you don't openly abuse it, there's nothing wrong with bearing it in mind either.  Strategically taking your class levels in a  planned order can wring an extra point or two out for your saves.
3. I recommend saving your math every level for reference. It's handy if you're unsure about this at all.
4. Remember, the first level in a new glass gives you a save bump the way saves are designed. You open up with +2 to your good saves and this is shiny.
5. If you'd like some more examples, I can post the math behind NPC saves on request.

Further reading:

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/gestaltCharacters.htm - Gestalt character information.

HAHAHAH Ok I get it now

Two house rule updates! The first is a reworking of the Brand of the Nine Hells/Mark of X feats from the FC2. This breaks the first feat into nine, as I found the base feat to be a tangled mess that was crammed together. Some feats were changed, mostly to reflect differences in the Nine Hells in this game versus the FC2's Baator. I'd been meaning to do this for awhile and Dolarnin inspired me to finish this project. These feats aren't entirely balanced - but that's okay, they're bad guy feats so it's DM discretion if they're used. I doubt any of you will ever qualify for them. The second one is a new Exalted feat, Holy Knowledge. This idea came to me when talking to Cor about other Exalted feats. It's not terribly powerful by itself, but it's not bad. It's probably better in non-gestalt when the class skill benefit would be a lot more important.

1. Yuth, could you please reply to the feedback topic? >_>

2. Question. What rules in this game - default or house rules or whatever else - do you think could be done better? Any suggestions here, people?

Would be nice if the skill +2 thing was in the skill section instead of the class section. I keep missing over it when I feel like checking and then I'm wondering if I did level-up right and included those or not.

I would suspect Yuth misses this from time to time too given he's forgotten the monk BAB house rule in the past and at a glance his skills seem kind of low even if he has a lot of them (did you do that as part of your audit or just check that roll mod looked right for the rank?).

About the only actual game effecting suggestion I can think of: I love the HP rule from Iron Heroes...that said I don't think it's particularly needed except by Simmer (and she's not exactly using d10s or d12s, so her benefit isn't quite as pronounced).

QuoteWould be nice if the skill +2 thing was in the skill section instead of the class section. I keep missing over it when I feel like checking and then I'm wondering if I did level-up right and included those or not.

Done. It's in both sections now.

QuoteI would suspect Yuth misses this from time to time too given he's forgotten the monk BAB house rule in the past and at a glance his skills seem kind of low even if he has a lot of them (did you do that as part of your audit or just check that roll mod looked right for the rank?).

I haven't checked total SP, though I can if anyone wants me to. It won't happen until the weekend if so.

QuoteAbout the only actual game effecting suggestion I can think of: I love the HP rule from Iron Heroes...that said I don't think it's particularly needed except by Simmer (and she's not exactly using d10s or d12s, so her benefit isn't quite as pronounced).

How's that rule work? I'm not immediately familiar with it.

QuoteAbout the only actual game effecting suggestion I can think of: I love the HP rule from Iron Heroes...that said I don't think it's particularly needed except by Simmer (and she's not exactly using d10s or d12s, so her benefit isn't quite as pronounced).

How's that rule work? I'm not immediately familiar with it.

<Merc> The rule converts any HP roll from dX to "X-4"+d4. So d4 remains the same. d6 would be 2+d4, d8 is 4+d4, d10 is 6+d4, d12 is 8+d4
<Merc> it's a little less random and avoids the situation of a wizard having more HP than a barbarian who somehow goes under luck and rolls pure 1s while the wizard rolls a mix of 3s and 4s
<Kotono> Post that?
<Merc> But that rule is better fit in non-gestalt, I think, and as I said, only Simmer really needs the HP boost that would provide.

Quote from: Merc on March 16, 2011, 01:33:50 AM

QuoteAbout the only actual game effecting suggestion I can think of: I love the HP rule from Iron Heroes...that said I don't think it's particularly needed except by Simmer (and she's not exactly using d10s or d12s, so her benefit isn't quite as pronounced).

How's that rule work? I'm not immediately familiar with it.

<Merc> The rule converts any HP roll from dX to "X-4"+d4. So d4 remains the same. d6 would be 2+d4, d8 is 4+d4, d10 is 6+d4, d12 is 8+d4
<Merc> it's a little less random and avoids the situation of a wizard having more HP than a barbarian who somehow goes under luck and rolls pure 1s while the wizard rolls a mix of 3s and 4s
<Kotono> Post that?
<Merc> But that rule is better fit in non-gestalt, I think, and as I said, only Simmer really needs the HP boost that would provide.

I'm not a huge fan of that, I have a stubborn old school streak of wanting to roll hit points. That said, if everyone else really likes it I'll consider it seriously.

THIS JUST IN:

<Merc> Also, I just did Yuth's skill points. His add up to 34 skill points out of 54 he'd get for monk 6
> I think some might be cross class.
> He mentioned that.
<Merc> just 1 point
<Merc> I counted that one as 2
> PM me your math real quick?
<Merc> I just popped it in my calculator which I have handy cause I'm doing some statistics review
* Kotono nods, doing the same real quick. What's his int modifier?
> +2?
<Merc> +0
<Merc> He's got int 11
> Lemme do it myself real quick, but I bet you're right.
> Oh well, at worst he gets more SP. Yay.
<Merc> heh
<Merc> I only did it for him because I suspected due to the fact that he misses the Monk BAB one repeatedly.
<Merc> Cor/Eb almost surely did it right.
* Kotono nods.
> I'm about 99% sure the did.

I checked and the math checks out, so it looks like you've shorted yourself 20 SP, Yuth. Feel free to fill these points in. Correct us if we're missing something, it looks like you forgot to apply the +2 SP bonus to all classes.

2. Everything could be better with more skill points per level! +4 go~

Quote from: Corwin on March 16, 2011, 05:05:38 AM
2. Everything could be better with more skill points per level! +4 go~

Mmmm. Could work, though higher end int, non Sylvie characters would have SP to burn. Team Bimbo would love it. Anyone else have an opinion here?

---

Also, my proposal: Since we have a character who relies on grapple we use those rules a lot. Let's be honest: The grapple rules are not good. So an upgrade here would be awesome! I'm considering nicking Pathfinder's grapple/CMB/CMD system. Relevant information can be found here: http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/combat#TOC-Combat-Maneuvers Thoughts?

You can never have too many skill points.

edit: I've found the PF grapple rules relatively painless from a DM's point of view, the only trouble being when I instinctively rule based on 3.5 knowledge, so I have to refer to it quite often to make sure I'm definitely getting it right. If you do that, though, you might as well nick the whole CMB/CMD system for trips/disarms/bull rushes etc.

Quote from: Ebiris on March 16, 2011, 02:41:19 PMedit: I've found the PF grapple rules relatively painless from a DM's point of view, the only trouble being when I instinctively rule based on 3.5 knowledge, so I have to refer to it quite often to make sure I'm definitely getting it right. If you do that, though, you might as well nick the whole CMB/CMD system for trips/disarms/bull rushes etc.

I don't care much about the disarm/trips ect add on rules, I'd have to study those if we port the entire thing in. I don't think anyone here is seriously focused in any of them so it's minimally intrusive.

Re: skills, if NPCs have more skill points than you need for them it can be handwaved or just sunk into some craft/profession/perform for flavorness.

Re: grapple, I think the Pathfinder system is elegant but moving to it would require me to rebuild in a limited fashion. In a nutshell, it shortchanges me quite a bit, and grapple has so far been my one cool thing.

-It's two feats instead of one to get the normal +4 bonus, and I don't have feats to spare.
-It has you grapple as a standard action and not as an attack action. Even the second feat only allows a maximum upper limit of two grapples per round, so even if I miraculously got the second feat for free I now have one less attack than before. And that would only grow worse.

Quote from: Corwin on March 16, 2011, 03:19:05 PM
Re: skills, if NPCs have more skill points than you need for them it can be handwaved or just sunk into some craft/profession/perform for flavorness.

That can work and was my plan, yeah.

QuoteRe: grapple, I think the Pathfinder system is elegant but moving to it would require me to rebuild in a limited fashion. In a nutshell, it shortchanges me quite a bit, and grapple has so far been my one cool thing.

-It's two feats instead of one to get the normal +4 bonus, and I don't have feats to spare.

I think it needs to be noted that the numbers have changed somewhat. A +2 bonus in Pathfinder's system may not be a straight downgrade from a +4 in 3.5. For example, I notice the size modifiers are much less severe in Pathfinder. This alone helps grapple a bunch. I can't really say how much this overall matters right now, as I haven't done any homework on it yet. No comment on the last part since it's predicated on more reading by my part. I'll address that a little later.

Actually, from my experience (I'm using Trip in GF) a +4 in Pathfinder is worse than a +4 in 3.5 for the person who wants to grapple (as opposed to the unfortunate victim, say).

Grapple CMB: BAB+STR+(optional, Grapple feat bonuses)+(optional, size bonuses)

Grapple feats offer less on comparison (+4 from two pathfinder feats as opposed to one 3.5 feat). So does size (+1 from Large in Pathfinder as opposed to +4 in 3.5).

Grapple CMD: Grapple CMB+10+DEX+(optional, AC bonuses from circumstance, deflection, dodge, insight, luck, morale, profane and sacred)

Basically, it means the weak but agile characters can more easily grapple someone specialized in grappling (me!) since they are allowed to use their DEX instead of STR in the CMB. It also means they can resist the grappling attacks launched against them easier. It also means a great deal of generic bonuses aid their defense from me (since everyone has deflection, dodge or one of the others, often from more than one source).

Aaeru's CMB: +10/+11 Large (+2 STR, +6 BAB, +2 improved grapple, +1 Large)
Aaeru's CMD: +23/+24 Large (+2 DEX, +1 Deflection)

Say I'm grappling my evil twin. In 3.5, we roll opposite grapple checks (+12 vs +12, or +17/+17 Large) and we have equal chances to succeed (50%). In Pathfinder, I need to roll 13 or higher to succeed, making it more like 35%. Incidentally, if I managed to use Enlarge Person and my evil twin hasn't, my chances are pretty damn good in 3.5, while in Pathfinder the change is minimal.

Add the lesser number of attacks and it's pretty clear there's nerfing.

My example is slightly skewed since grappling feat bonuses add to the CMD. But it should probably hold, since I also don't have much in the way of AC bonuses which any normal character should and would.

I'm going to run some of my own numbers in a second to see how it looks. Hold on, I wanna do more things than just one PC.

Sylvie: CMB/CMD 5/22 (Monk AC bonus is added to CMD according to Pathfinder's monk section, running with that for the moment. It's 17 otherwise.) She sucks at any of this but is good at resisting it.
Josa: CMB/CMD 6/16  Resoundingly average-ish at it.
SRD wolf  (CR 1) CMB/CMD 2/13 -Terrible at it, though I'd have to check it's rules if it's trip ability gives it a bonus on those checks.
SRD Dire wolf (CR 3) CMB/CMD 12/24 - Pretty competent at this stuff. As it's main ability revolves around tripping this makes sense.
SRD Belker (CR 6) CMB 7/13 - Pretty shitty at it, though I freely admit it's not a remotely grapple-esque monster.
SRD Kyton (CR 6)  CMB/CMD 10/22 - Pretty average for it's level.

These are for my own reference, more posting to come.

Quote from: Corwin on March 16, 2011, 03:19:05 PM-It's two feats instead of one to get the normal +4 bonus, and I don't have feats to spare.
-It has you grapple as a standard action and not as an attack action. Even the second feat only allows a maximum upper limit of two grapples per round, so even if I miraculously got the second feat for free I now have one less attack than before. And that would only grow worse.

I can remerge the feats, since we aren't using the higher feat gain rate of Pathfinder, or work something else out there.

To be honest with the second part, I'm okay with that. I'm not entirely looking forward to resolving 3-5 opposed checks per attack routine for you later on, and then all the stuff grappling entails. This has an appeal to me, though I know you're hung up on your 'one cool thing' and are going to be resistant to anything that undermines it.  Question - does this proposed change have any knock on effects - say making you more versatile since you might be better at disarming or tripping now?

It doesn't really make me that since the largest barrier to using any of those combat maneuvers is the AoOs Grapple/Disarm/Trip/etc incur unless you have a specialized feat for each.

You're saying that you're not looking for 3 opposed checks per attack, but it's not like the number of attacks would go down for me if I just punch people, and I'm not the only one with multiple attacks on a full attack. If you want to have less rolling I don't really mind switching to having a fixed grapple 'combat maneuver defense' like Pathfinder's. I just don't want to have my attack routine messed up in the process. Again, if the problem is opposed checks, then I don't see why people who don't specialize need a high CMD vs grapple or why the amount of attacks should be lesser for me.

Quote from: Corwin on March 16, 2011, 04:29:08 PMYou're saying that you're not looking for 3 opposed checks per attack, but it's not like the number of attacks would go down for me if I just punch people, and I'm not the only one with multiple attacks on a full attack. If you want to have less rolling I don't really mind switching to having a fixed grapple 'combat maneuver defense' like Pathfinder's.

Multiple attacks isn't the entire rub here. Most everyone has two attacks now or even three on a flurry. That many grapples slows things down more - you need a touch attack to hit, then an opposed grapple check for each one that gets through.  This slows things down versus a simple binary of attack roll, hit or miss.

QuoteI just don't want to have my attack routine messed up in the process. Again, if the problem is opposed checks, then I don't see why people who don't specialize need a high CMD vs grapple or why the amount of attacks should be lesser for me.

I don't entirely follow where you're going with the CMD comment or why offhand. Why don't you elaborate on why you said that?

Let me see if I understand your intentions and try to meet you halfway.

I'll assume that what bothers you the most is the amount of rolling. 3.5 grapple with X attacks requires 3X rolls to determine pre-damage.

In that case, we can go:

CMB: BAB+STR+SIZE+Specialized Feats
CMD: CMB+DEX+10

Size modifiers remain as they are in 3.5. The feats give the same advantages as in 3.5. What changes is that the process is streamlined, and grappling with X attacks requires X rolls. The touch attack is eliminated, and rather than have the opposite grapple rolls, now there is a single grapple roll against a DC.

Everyone could have a Grapple CMB and Grapple CMD listed on their sheets instead of the Grapple mod currently there.

Edit: To preserve the failure chance (nat 1) on the touch attack, rolling a Grapple check of natural 1 now fails it.

Changing the fuckhuge size modifiers from 3.5 into the more modest ones from Pathfinder seems really awesome on the surface to me, because fuck that shit with not even being able to compete on the same plane of existence with monsters. Being able to cast spells and such in grapple as Pathfinder allows also seems nice.

As for the overall aim of nerfing grapple, I can see it as desirable because as it stands it isn't a tactical choice for Aaeru, it's her default go-to solution for everything. If she had to think 'Do I grab this guy and limit his actions for a round, or do I try and knock him out quickly?' as opposed to her current 'Do I grappleflurry this guy and own him or do I regular flurry him and possibly miss and even if I hit he might not die so he can still run around doing stuff which he can't if I grapple him' dilemma, it becomes more of a meaningful choice between two viable options instead of one rendering the other completely redundant.

Eh. Isn't it the same as saying Eldritch Blast is your default go-to solution for everything?  :/

I'd prefer to develop other viable options on my own (such as Arcane Strike, which boosts normal attacks but not grapple) for tactical decisions in combat rather than get nerfed. And since Dune makes and runs the monsters, they'll still have impossible grapple mods when he wants them, just like enemies have high saves when he wants them.

Ragging on me for using eldritch blast is like ragging on Andrea for stabbing dudes. It's a basic attack. Grapple is a special attack which in your case is almost always a guaranteed, but very slow, win.

That's really my issue with it. It's boring inevitable victory. Aaeru grapples a dude? Okay, I guess that means we'll have won in three rounds after twenty or so minutes real time of dice rolling. From my point of view, streamlining and nerfing it would make for greatly more interesting battles.

This is semantics. It's no more a guaranteed win than ranged touch attacks. It is more cumbersome, but that part can be handled by streamlining without actually making it suck.

To compare, CMB and CMD would be an attack routine against a separate AC from the normal one. That would bring it in line with a ranged touch attack against a separate AC (touch AC, in that case) from the normal one.

You could say being grappled makes the enemy easier to hit in melee, while harder with ranged weapons. The same can be said for even joining melee, where flanking gives other meleers bonuses but gives a to hit penalty to ranged attackers.

Okay if you're just going to write off anything I say as semantics there's no point talking. But I'd rather be fighting monsters who fight back and make me feel invested in what's happening than ones that spent several rounds flailing ineffectually in Aaeru's iron grip while waiting for the inevitable. That's what my point of view on the subject boils down to.

And as you always talk about grapple being 'your cool thing'? It's not, it's your bread and butter. It may be something cool when used to spice up an encounter now and then, but when it's the be all and end all of every encounter it loses its appeal.

It hasn't lost its appeal to me, if that still matters.

Of course, there is the alternative. That being that Aaeru flails ineffectively while everyone performs better around her. I don't want that. I'm trying to correct that, of course, but it takes time.

I don't even get why it's such a big issue for you given that whenever there's more than one enemy that changes the situation entirely, me being unable to grapple several people and all.

Edit: On second look, it does seem as if I'm writing off what you are saying. This was not actually the intent, and I will explain what I meant by 'semantics'.

3.5 might call them basic attacks and special attacks and smites and what not. At the end of the day, we have on our sheets several attack routines. BAB and its derivatives. Most people have a melee routine with a favored weapon and a ranged routine with a backup one. Sometimes it's with two weapons. Sometimes it's with a blast or a trip or any other special options like trip. That does not change the fact that all of them are billed as attacks by 3.5 and it's up to us to choose which we use. Having an Eldritch Blast does not preclude you from using a sling or a crossbow or a dagger or even a greataxe. You are using the Eldritch Blast because it is a) the most mechanically sound option for your build, b) it fits thematically, c) you think it's cool. The situation is the same for me, with grapple. I hope to develop other alternatives, as I've said, and then I could use, say, Rainbow Pattern or Arcane Strike-boosted kicks instead of grapple, just as you sometimes use a swarm summoning/grapple/other incantations instead of the blast. I don't see, however, why it would make grapple any less of a legitimate option on these merits. Right now, grapple is more cumbersome in execution, but that is not a function of its 'specialness'. I've demonstrated that it can be streamlined very easily without reducing its effectiveness. So when I offer that and you still want it nerfed, then from what I see the argument over how special an attack grapple is disappears and what remains is that you just dislike it as a combat option for mechanical and RP reasons.

I do understand you don't like it and find it lame. I even see how you would find it crippling to you (though to be fair, as much as shooting into melee gives you a certain penalty). However I happen to disagree, and I don't really want something I like and have built my character around to a degree around to be nerfed merely for that reason. I hope we can agree to disagree. Please don't think that I dismissed your arguments out of hand, and please don't dismiss mine.

My point revolves around how a basic attack does damage and a special attack does other stuff. There's no mechanical difference between me shooting someone with a blast, Andrea stabbing them with a sword, or Wayland karate kicking them. It can be done indefinitely and on a success it subtracts some hp, but if the target isn't killed it remains completely unhindered.

In Aaeru's case when she grapples, she gets all the benefit of a basic attack, except the attack is more favourable to hit, and upon hitting the enemy loses mobility, defence, and actions. It's a special attack because it does so much more than just reducing hit points.

For everyone else a special attack either consumes a limited resource (spells or stunning fist uses or bardsong) or does less direct damage (swarms hurt less than blasts but were guaranteed to hit and carried small nerfs).

We're clearly not going to convince each other, though, and I'm not going to cry foul and say that your grapple build is overpowered to force a more balanced rebuild, because it's not, it's just something I find boring. So in the end agreeing to disagree is all that can be done.

Relying to various bits in no particular order.

QuoteChanging the fuckhuge size modifiers from 3.5 into the more modest ones from Pathfinder seems really awesome on the surface to me, because fuck that shit with not even being able to compete on the same plane of existence with monsters. Being able to cast spells and such in grapple as Pathfinder allows also seems nice.

Quoting this for general agreement. Frankly I'm surprised you want to keep the size modifiers as it is, since you gain more by nerfing then than by keeping them. Sure it hurts Aaeru short term, but long term it makes grapple much more viable against bigger monsters.

QuoteOkay if you're just going to write off anything I say as semantics there's no point talking. But I'd rather be fighting monsters who fight back and make me feel invested in what's happening than ones that spent several rounds flailing ineffectually in Aaeru's iron grip while waiting for the inevitable. That's what my point of view on the subject boils down to.

I do agree that grapple can often be a slog rather than a dynamic action. This is a good part of why I'd like to streamline it. I admit my experiences here have been mixed - for example grappling in the valkyrie fight was meant to be a big part of it, but you found it boring. That said, is it always bad? Nah. I think it's bad when the bad guy ends up doing exactly what Eb said - flailing away to little gain, rather than being a serious threat. Yet paradoxically this is good strategy. On the other hand, if the bad guy is good enough to throw off the grapples and get past Aaeru, I suspect you feel ineffective.

Take from all that what you will.

QuoteOf course, there is the alternative. That being that Aaeru flails ineffectively while everyone performs better around her. I don't want that. I'm trying to correct that, of course, but it takes time.

I don't feel it's that binary and I sometimes worry you're too hung up on grappling versus the fear of being ineffective.  I feel this entire One Cool Thing mantra of yours leads to you pigeonholing your thoughts and style a bit too much. I think there's a good pile of reasons why this has happened. Aaeru's VoP so no items to help her out or add variety. You don't feel your unarmed strikes are as effective, and considering grapple I don't blame you. Further considering the resource investment you've made in it, I think you feel obligated to focus on grappling.

On the other hand, more options will open up in time.

QuoteI do understand you don't like it and find it lame. I even see how you would find it crippling to you (though to be fair, as much as shooting into melee gives you a certain penalty). However I happen to disagree, and I don't really want something I like and have built my character around to a degree around to be nerfed merely for that reason.

Do you need to be nerfed? Nah. To be honest grappling will do less and less for you as monsters get nastier, since grapple never really keeps up unless you're huge or bigger. You simply don't keep up with the size modifiers.

On modifiers: I've made an investment, as you've said, and part of that is Enlarge Person. Take it away and my grapple check is pretty similar to a normal person's, except with say STR 18. I don't really plan on grappling fuckhuge dragons and I also don't expect to have a chance of subduing them via grapple since you could always make them more overwhelming if they weren't already while abiding by the new proposed size rules.

On the Valkyrie fight: it was a boring slog because I knew I couldn't get past her DR and ER (and neither could the rest of the party, so I couldn't even feel useful for lowering her AC for them), not because she was better at grappling than me or because she won.

On doing well in grapple or underperforming vis a vis the rest of the party outside of it: I really am, and you could probably check that pretty easily. However, when I say that I'm fully aware that it's a statement about a moment in time (ie, right now) and not some pessimistic projection about the rest of the game. I've been waiting on AS for a huge boost for ages, and it's finally here so I'll see how it works out. And if it doesn't, by that time I'll have useful spells.

On not keeping up: I guess, if we think of monsters. I'd be cool with still being able to grapple dudes in full plate. (EDIT: I suppose if THIS is the main issue for you I can just take the hit and go for the Pathfinder size bonuses. I never really expected to ever succeed grappling something Large and larger given how huge their bab and str must be to begin with, so I've always planned on only grappling Medium and smaller humanoids.)

Quote
On not keeping up: I guess, if we think of monsters. I'd be cool with still being able to grapple dudes in full plate. (EDIT: I suppose if THIS is the main issue for you I can just take the hit and go for the Pathfinder size bonuses. I never really expected to ever succeed grappling something Large and larger given how huge their bab and str must be to begin with, so I've always planned on only grappling Medium and smaller humanoids.)

I don't care either way on this issue.

Issues on the table:

1. Increase added SP from +2/level to +4. Everyone seems okay with this, pending Yuth chiming in. Assuming no snags there this'll go through. Wait for me to confirm it before adding any points. Yuth, this is seperate from the SP issue noted earlier with Wayland, I'll talk to you about that later.

2. CMB/CMD. I'm likely going to do something here, still working shit out on my end. Again, waiting for more/any comments and Yuth.

In other news, I'm working on a PrC for Simmer. All the elemental ones turn you into an elemental, which is redundant for her. I'm adapting the Elemental something or other dragon PrC from Draconomicon. It should be posted by Monday, conversion is taking some time to balance it out.

---Digression alert---

Dragon PrCs? Nice idea, not so great results. Dragon HD are loaded enough as it is, you have to make them pretty fucking good to lure a dragon away. I don't think they're really needed because of that. I'd rather just template a dragon to taste than do a draconic PrC. This gets doubly worse since most of them aren't going to see much play out of high/epic levels. Honestly they'd be better as epic PrCs tailored to dragons instead of virtual age categories. Instead of blanket advancement past great wyrm, they choose a PrC and advance aspects of themselves. This can lead to further metamorphosis; for example, a couple of draconic PrCs are meant to emulate certain templates. (Half fiend, elemental, DvR0 all appear from a quick reading) In fact, I may do something like this if/when I run another epic level game for dragon advancement. Mental note, remember that for later.

As another digression, later dragon age categories should have been integrated with epic to begin with. That's a whole other rant about how poorly epic is worked into 3.5, though.

Quote from: Anastasia on March 16, 2011, 01:46:57 AM
THIS JUST IN:

<Merc> Also, I just did Yuth's skill points. His add up to 34 skill points out of 54 he'd get for monk 6
> I think some might be cross class.
> He mentioned that.
<Merc> just 1 point
<Merc> I counted that one as 2
> PM me your math real quick?
<Merc> I just popped it in my calculator which I have handy cause I'm doing some statistics review
* Kotono nods, doing the same real quick. What's his int modifier?
> +2?
<Merc> +0
<Merc> He's got int 11
> Lemme do it myself real quick, but I bet you're right.
> Oh well, at worst he gets more SP. Yay.
<Merc> heh
<Merc> I only did it for him because I suspected due to the fact that he misses the Monk BAB one repeatedly.
<Merc> Cor/Eb almost surely did it right.
* Kotono nods.
> I'm about 99% sure the did.

I checked and the math checks out, so it looks like you've shorted yourself 20 SP, Yuth. Feel free to fill these points in. Correct us if we're missing something, it looks like you forgot to apply the +2 SP bonus to all classes.

This is not really surprising. I'm scatterbrained as it is, and sometimes my brain tells me that I did things when I really haven't.

It's okay, that's why I do sheet audits. I'm glad I caught 'em so you get the SP you're entitled to.

Okay, I'm looking to use the base CMB/CMD system from Pathfinder. I'm looking at a full on transfer after studying things. Let me know what you think! This isn't final yet.

This is what a changeover would effect. Feel free to read here as well: http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/combat#TOC-Combat-Maneuvers

- Everyone has a CMB and a CMD in place of grapple on their sheets. For example, my monster statblocks would look different.

Old: Base Attack Bonus/Grapple: +x/+x
New: Base Attack Bonus:/Combat Maneuver Bonus/Combat Maneuver Defense: +x/+x/+x

- We keep the 3.5 size modifiers so this part doesn't change. See here for more about size modifiers: http://www.d20srd.org/srd/combat/movementPositionAndDistance.htm#bigandLittleCreaturesInCombat Note: I'm concerned this is going to lead to some wonky balance issues. If it turns out it does, I'm going to make the change over to the Pathfinder size modifiers over objections. Having done my homework, my personal judgment is that we should. I'm refraining for Cor's sake.

- We're not going to convert to the Pathfinder feats for these but keep using the 3.5 feats. The various improved x feats regarding these maneuvers will be rewritten to accommodate the changes.

- We'll use the pathfinder rules for Bull Rush. There are minimal changes and no one ever bullrushes anyway so this isn't important.

- Dirty Trick is now available if you want to try that sort of thing. It's a fine rule.

- We'll use the pathfinder version of disarm. It's slightly smoother all around.

- We'll go ahead and include Drag as well, since why not?

- Grapple works as noted in Pathfinder, except that we keep grapples per round as 3.5. Escape Artist to escape a grapple would be against the target's CMD.

- Overrun will work as in Pathfinder. This is another thing that's so rarely used that I don't care.

- We'll go ahead and toss reposition in as well, could be interesting.

- Any interest in steal at all, guys? I'm on the fence about this one.

- Sunder can work as Pathfinder. This is another of the rarely used skills, since destroying loot is rarely productive.

-  Trip's Pathfinder version is cleaner, I prefer it I think.

------

Secondary suggested house rules if we end up using all this, let me know what you think:

Tumbling to avoid AoOs becomes an opposed check against an opponent's CMD. This makes tumble more than +14 mod and forget. While this does increase the skill burden on all of you somewhat, I'm okay with this since I'm being really generous with houserules for extra SP.

Tumbling vs CMD is fine with me, I'm happy enough to use the system overall.

Are we getting +4 extra skill points per level instead of +2 now?

(also Bull Rush is awesome when there are cliffs or lava or acid about)

Assuming that goes through, yes. I'm waiting for Yuth to have a chance to comment and me to talk to him first. I'm assuming it will, but nothing's final.

[15:03] * Kotono tries to gnaw a post out of Merc.
[15:03] <Merc> I have no comment on CMB/D stuff
[15:04] <Kotono> No opinion at all?
[15:04] <Merc> Nope. I don't use it, so if it's easier for you, go for it.

Either way is fine with me. I understand both systems...mostly. Whatever you prefer will work.

To be perfectly honest, my gut still tells me I'll need to rebuild in a limited way. But I don't want to be contrarian or not give things a chance, so let's go with this for now. If I see that it's not working for me, I'll retrain grapple and stuff later.

That's fine, we'll see how the changes work.

Another post coming shortly.

Okay! Two rule changes as talked about and decided.

1. The +2 skill point bonus increases to +4. This means +18 SP for the group. Yuth, if you haven't applied those SP you were short, you add these to it for a total of +38 SP. If you already have, just add the normal 18.

2. We're switching to CMB/CMD as outlined a few posts above. See below for reworked feats and new feats for the new maneuvers.



NPCs are going to be updated shortly.

I'm posting this here since Yuth peered out and I need to crash soon. Two things if you could, Yuth?

1. Get your skills caught up? I'll be glad to help you before session if you'd like, but I'd like get those in order and done with before next session.

2. Post in Feedback. I really appreciate posts in there and it helps me craft the game to your guys tastes.

Thanks!

Ok!

The feedback topic, it reaches for Yuthirin with long, persistent claws. Hint.

---

http://www.dnd-wiki.org/wiki/Zeal_%283.5e_Alternate_Class_Feature%29

Cor wants to try this ACF. I don't have any problem with trying it, we'll see how it goes.  I'm a little leery of allowing this sort of swap in a gestalt game, though I've been using ACFs with other NPCs so I don't have a great argument here.

Let's be honest. Behind the screen figuring out who can be resurrected and who can't is a difficult spot for the DM.  For all I can apply logic, it's intrinsically not fair to have the ultimate choice of life or death. Therefore I've taken measures to reduce the amount of DM judgment here as possible. It's easy to play favorites or give that illusion; why should Noel and Branna stay dead if Brent lives again? These guidelines I've developed should help explain where I'm coming from, as well as giving you guys a fair warning of what's up. I'm sharing them so that you understand the process. I feel it's fairer to everyone. There's still some judgment involved, but you  know what to expect and ultimately nothing is assured.

I'd recommend reviewing this post before you continue: http://www.soulriders.net/forum/index.php?topic=101115.msg1016882#msg1016882 You may also find a review of the setting deities useful, as well as reviewing Faiths and Pantheons to get the general view of the various powers on resurrection when not superseded by campaign specific information: http://www.soulriders.net/forum/index.php?topic=101115.msg1016880#msg1016880 Finally, remember that all of this applies to mortal souls. If Simmer bites it an entirely different set of rules apply.

From the moment of death to a week after, resurrection is not overly difficult. While the odds are not 100%, a spirit passing through the Well of Souls is much easier to call back than a spirit that has moved onto the Realms Beyond. Use the following formula:

Base resurrection chance: 75%

Modifiers:

+10% if the deceased's death was premature or left affairs beyond. A young man's murder, a parent dying and leaving children behind to fend for themselves, a warrior with an unfinished holy quest are all fine examples. Spirits motivated above and beyond even this tend not to reach the Well of Souls, becoming ghosts instead.

-10% if the deceased's death was due to old age or satisfying. An old man dying surrounded by beloved family, a paladin of Ilmater giving his life so that his friends live, a knight dying after assuring his kingdom will survive a terrible threat are all good examples.

+5% if the caster is a close friend, family member or beloved of the deceased.

-25% if a neutral but unconnected power attempts the resurrection. This applies to powers with no ties to the realm or god the deceased is going to pass onto - for example, a cleric of Mystra attempting to revive a follower of Hanali Celanil. This does not apply to friendly powers in the same group or alliance of powers at the DM's discretion: A cleric of Helm can raise a follower of Tyr just fine, for example.

Automatic failure if the caster is an enemy of the deceased or otherwise opposed to him. In essence this causes automatic rejection in all but the rarest instances. A paladin of Mystra isn't going to answer the call of a cleric of Shar. If the DM rules that the circumstances are exceptional enough to allow the possibility, treat this as -50% instead.

-10% if the deceased is aware of his afterlife and welcomes it. This doesn't mean that he may be going to one of the Heavens, only that he's happy with his assumed final fate.

+10% if the deceased is aware of his afterlife and dreads it.

-15% per previous resurrection. These stack, someone who has been revived twice has a -30% modifier, someone who has been revived three times has a -45% modifier and so on.

Further modifiers may be assigned by the DM as the situation warrants. The maximum chance to revive is 90%, there is still a small chance that a soul is unwilling or unable to return for whatever reason. Once a roll is passed or made, it applies to all resurrection chances until he is revived or passes into the Realms Beyond. A soul that is revived, dies again and is resurrected again recalculates it's chances and rerolls. Direct divine intervention, in the form of a miracle spell or true divine action, are not affected by any of these rules. In the case of a miracle spell, the deity still must choose to intervene - a mortal cleric casting miracle is not assured of resurrecting another if his god is not willing.

---

A soul that has passed into the Realms beyond is far more difficult to recall. It may be content in paradise. Perhaps it has found the spring of the ethos that drove it's life, becoming one with it or an exemplar of it. The less fortunate may be found in chains and tormented, or reborn as the lowest of the low souls in the Hells. For all these various reasons, resurrections after a week have passed are far more likely to fail. Use the following formulate:

Base resurrection chance: 10%

-20% to +20% depending on the deity or outer plane the deceased went to. Deities take precedence over outer planes when applicable - someone who died in the service of Mystra would use her modifier and not the modifier of Elysium. See sub-table 1 for more information.

+10% if the deceased's death was premature or left affairs beyond. A young man's murder, a parent dying and leaving children behind to fend for themselves, a warrior with an unfinished holy quest are all fine examples.

-10% if the deceased's death was due to old age or satisfying. An old man dying surrounded by beloved family, a paladin of Ilmater giving his life so that his friends live, a knight dying after assuring his kingdom will survive a terrible threat are all good examples.

+5% if the deceased does not fit the exact alignment of his deity or outer plane. Again, deity takes precedence over outer plane.

-5% if the deceased fits the exact alignment of his deity or outer plane. Again, deity takes precedence over outer plane.

+5% if the caster is a close friend, family member, or beloved of the deceased.

Automatic failure if the caster is an enemy of the deceased or otherwise opposed to him. In essence this causes automatic rejection in all but the rarest instances. A paladin of Mystra isn't going to answer the call of a cleric of Shar. In this case no possibility of success is allowed - a Power isn't going to allow souls faithful to it to be called away from it's realm.

-20% if the deceased failed a resurrection roll in the Well of Souls.

-15% per previous resurrection. These stack, someone who has been revived twice has a -30% modifier, someone who has been revived three times has a -45% modifier and so on.

Further modifiers may be assigned by the DM as the situation warrants. The maximum chance to revive is 50%, there is still a sizable chance that a soul is unwilling or unable to return for whatever reason. A soul that is revived, dies again and is resurrected again recalculates it's chances and rerolls. Only direct divine intervention by the deity or realm that the soul resides in can bypass these rules.

Sub-Table 1: Modifiers for resurrection chance by relevant divinity or realm. (Note that only ones relevant to the party are noted. IC, a K:R check against DC 20-30, depending on how well known the faith is, can provide more information. Short blurbs are given to explain modifiers; more information on the reasons behind a power's modifier can be given if you're curious.

Alicia: -20%. - Is generally against resurrection and prefers that souls pass on in peace.
Ilmater: +5% - This one's complicated. While Ilmater values sacrifice and mending the pain and suffering of many, including death, many of his faithful look towards his afterlife as a respite from a lifetime of suffering for others. This complicated relationship restrains Ilmater's hands somewhat.
Jannath: -10%. Jannath prefers reincarnations within the week after death, those that pass beyond are less likely to return.
Lathander: +20%. - Is the god of the dawn, new life and newborns. Duh.
Seira: +10% - Pending review.

Celestia: -5% - Once the climb up the Holy Mountain is begun, few turn away from it.
Elysium: -10% - Who can leave perfection?
Arborea: 0% - Arborea respects the choice of the soul, doing nothing to encourage or inhibit this choice.
Mechanus: 0% - Mechanus holds that resurrection is acceptable and part of the natural cycle. Excessive use gets maruts sicced on you, as noted in their flavor text.
Limbo: Random, roll 1d6: 1: -20% 2: -10% 3: -5% 4: +5% 5: +10% 6: +20% -Limbo does whatever Limbo wants at any one moment.
Baator: -20% - This can vary depending on soul pacts and relevant contracts. For a typical schlep who ends up here the odds of coming out are painfully low to non-existent.
Abyss: +20%- However, those who come back from the Abyss have very high odds of strange mutations. Gaining Abyssal Heritor, Vile or Anarchic feats is normal, and the truly cursed may gain Abyssal Ravages. The Abyss wants to reach out and kill you and everyone you care for, then make them wallow in agony for a few eternities. See Sub-Table 2 for more information...except you won't, since I'm not posting that one. A DM has to keep a few secrets.

After a soul is raised, there is a chance that they came back a little bit...different. Wrong, or at least still touched by the grave. There is a flat chance of 20% that someone resurrected will roll on the Resurrection Mishaps table from page 80 of Heroes of Horror. A result completely contrary to the interests of  reviving deity should be rerolled. This does not prevent unfortunate results, but only stops ones that simply make no sense based on the power involved.

Bonus content:

I was dicking around with the idea of campaign specific feats based around having died and being resurrected. These aren't official, just me screwing around with the concept. Comments are welcome, if one really interests you and you can qualify for it(Hi Wayland) talk to me and we'll see. These were done around 3 AM so I make no promises about quality.

Shield of the Mist [General]
Prerequisite: Must have died, visited the Well of Souls and been resurrected.
Benefit: Some of the mists of the Well of Souls linger around you. Once per day as a swift action you can manifest these mists around you. This provides you with concealment, granting you a 20% miss chance. Against incorporeal attacks this bonus rises to 50%. This lasts for one minute.

Breath of the Mist [General]
Prerequisite: Shield of Mist
Benefit: You can gather up the mists around you and exhale them in a cloud. Three times per day you may use Obscuring Mist as a spell-like ability, with a caster level equal to your hit dice.

Embrace of Beyond [General]
Prerequisite: Must have died, passed onto the Realms Beyond and been resurrected, must have been happy with your afterlife and not changed alignment since then.
Benefit: You have gained near unshakable faith in your course in life. You gain a +5 bonus against any spell or ability that would change your alignment or faith. If the ability does not grant a saving throw, you are allowed a will save to negate. Calculate the DC as 20 + charisma modifier if a creature or caster level if an item or unattached spell or effect.

Terror of Eternity [General]
Prerequisite: Must have died, passed onto the Realms Beyond and been resurrected, must have been unhappy with your afterlife.
Benefit: The fear of returning to your torment drives you beyond your limits. Once per day you may choose to reroll any single failed saving throw with a +3 bonus. This is a free action.

Touch of the Otherworldly [General]
Prerequisite: Must have died and been resurrected, wis 15, cha 15, must be mortal until you take this feat.
Benefit: Your nature has been changed by your death and resurrection; your body becomes partially spiritual. Your type changes to Outsider(Native).  This grants you darkvision and a few other things, check the SRD for more information.
Special: Once you take this feat, you need not meet the prerequisite of being a mortal.

Quote from: Anastasia on March 30, 2011, 04:31:50 AMThere is a flat chance of 20% that someone resurrected will roll on the Resurrection Mishaps table from page 80 of Lords of Madness.

Heroes of Horror, you mean? >_>

(Don't turn Brent into a brain-sucking aberration, dammit!)

You are CORRECT.

Fixed.

Yuth, you were interested in Shield of Mist? When would you want to take that as a feat?

Secondly, blame Merc for this entire idea and derail.

<Merc> If she grabs warlock, I'm gonna make fun of her =p
> The joke is her making a pact with Silver. That would be hilarious, which admittedly tempts me. On the other hand it's likely the road of the highest cheese level, so eh.
<Merc> It's too bad she's not a religious person, otherwise I'd say run her down a road where she's punching stuff with giant books.
> Books?
<Merc> Just a random thought. I was just getting the mental image of that one guy from Berserk that smashed a book into someone's face.
> ...
> I just had an idea for that.
<Merc> http://berserk.wikia.com/wiki/Mozgus <-- this guy if you ever read Berserk.
> Exotic Weapon Proficiency: Book.
<Merc> She could grab a few levels of Exotic Weapon Master PrC before exemplar?
<Merc> She can grab the Trip Master stunt, and be tripping people...with books!
<Merc> Or...exotic sunder! She can break things with books!
<Merc> Or "Show Off"! She can start reading books in the middle of a fight and scare her opponents just doing that!
<Merc> ...yes, you must give her that proficiency and then grab that Show Off stunt.
<Merc> It'd be badass.
> I'd have to figure out how to stat out a book. Let me check some weapons.
> Mmmm. It's an idea, I'd have to fuck around with the mechanics a bit. Simplest way is to just refluff a club.
<Merc> I was gonna say just make it a club, yeah.
<Merc> Make it a x4 crit though!
<Merc> Knowledge hurts!
<Merc> plus, hey, it's an EXP feat getting blown, so yeah.
<Merc> EWP* rather
* Kotono nods.
> I admit that's not a bad idea. Most EWP weapons really aren't worth it, to be honest.

I may actually do this, let me see how it strikes me when I'm not dazed.

So we talked about this, but it wasn't really finalized. How would Ilmater's Suffering domain look?

Working on it. Two of the upper level spells need to be changed, Eyebite and Symbol of Pain, as they have the evil descriptor.

Switch in Waves of Exhaustion at 7, drop Horrid Wilting down to 8, use Energy Drain for 9. This is how it was originally printed in the PgtF, it got modified between then and the SC.

House rule addition to skills:

Diplomacy: All diplomacy checks are given a DC by the DM's discretion. The attitudes table in the SRD is not used.

I've been running it this way for the entire game(and most of Balmuria 1), as diplomacy as written is broken.  I'm adding it now so that everyone's clear. I tend to use diplomacy to settle things that aren't certain; say exactly the right thing or absolutely the wrong thing and diplomacy doesn't matter.

The fanatic state from the epic rules still exists. It's a flat DC 50 diplomacy check to give this status to allies, you cannot bestow it on yourself. This is just in case you care about epic level applications of skills.

Posted a new set of three substitution levels. Feedback on them welcome.

If you're ever curious about how not to design substitution levels, this is it. I knew it was bad almost from the start, so I said fuck it and finished it. Hey, I figured I could purge the shit out of my systems and then work on something better tomorrow.

Added a houseruled version of the subduing strike(BoED) to houserules. It now works on normal or ranged attacks, as well as any precision damage. If you really want to invest a feat in doing nonlethal damage knock yourself out.

Requesting comments on this feat. It's mainly relevant to Eb, though if Andrea ever ends up advancing her paladin spellcasting it could be to her. It's an FR style Initiate feat, adding a few thematically approriate spells for her worshipers. Whirling Blade was an iconic spell for her, giving anyone immediate range when required. Voice of the Archon and Might of the Planetar are in the same position, while Know Vulnerabilities gives her paladins added strategic competency.

Initiate of Alicia [Initiate]
Prerequisite: Cleric or paladin level 4th
Benefit: You gain a +2 sacred bonus to armor class and attack rolls against servants of Shar. In addition, you add the following spells to your cleric or paladin spell list.

2nd: Whirling Blade
4th: Voice of the Archon*, Know Vulnerabilities (Paladin only)
7th: Might of the Planetar*(Cleric only)

*Voice of the Archon is a refluffed Voice of the Dragon from Spell Compendium. It functions identically. Might of the Planetar is an altered Bite of the Wearbear.

Might of the Planetar
Transmutation
Level: Sorcerer/Wizard 7
Components: V,S
Range: Personal
Target: You
Duration: 1 round/level

With a triumphant cry, your flesh tints a vibrant green and powerful muscle builds under your skin. Your fists clench monetarily, feeling behind them the strength to pulverise any foe.

You gain a +16 enhancement bonus to Strength, a +2 enhancement bonus to Dexterity, a +8 enhancement bonus to Constitution, and a +7 enhancement bonus to Natural Armour. You gain a slam attack that inflicts 2d8 + 1-1/2 your strength modifier. You gain the benefits of the Blind-Fight and Power Attack feats as well.

The spells are aces, but the benefit seems a bit too situational compared to what other initiate feats offer. For her I think a better one would be something like the DC to dispel spells placed by the character upon herself is 13 + spell level. Fits with her own fighting style and should be useful for her followers as well.

How about this then?

Initiate of Alicia [Initiate]
Prerequisite: Cleric or paladin level 4th
Benefit: Your caster level for magic cast yourself is considered two levels higher, for the sake of dispel magic and similar effects. For example, a caster level 6 cleric's divine favor would be treated as a caster level 8 if a wizard tries to dispel it. This only applies to spells cast on directly on you, not other spells.

2nd: Whirling Blade
3rd: Know Vulnerabilities (Paladin only)
4th: Voice of the Archon*
7th: Might of the Planetar*(Cleric only)

*Voice of the Archon is a refluffed Voice of the Dragon from Spell Compendium. It functions identically. Might of the Planetar is an altered Bite of the Wearbear.

Might of the Planetar
Transmutation
Level: Sorcerer/Wizard 7, Initiate of Alicia 7
Components: V,S
Range: Personal
Target: You
Duration: 1 round/level

With a triumphant cry, your flesh tints a vibrant green and powerful muscle builds under your skin. Your fists clench monetarily, feeling behind them the strength to pulverise any foe.

You gain a +16 enhancement bonus to Strength, a +2 enhancement bonus to Dexterity, a +8 enhancement bonus to Constitution, and a +7 enhancement bonus to Natural Armour. You gain a slam attack that inflicts 2d8 + 1-1/2 your strength modifier. You gain the benefits of the Blind-Fight and Power Attack feats as well.

Sure that works.

Quote from: Corwin on March 31, 2011, 05:28:04 PM
So we talked about this, but it wasn't really finalized. How would Ilmater's Suffering domain look?

Granted Power (Sp): You can use a pain touch once per day. Make a melee touch attack against a living creature, which bestows on that creature a -2 penalty to Strength and Dexterity for 1 minute on a successful attack. This ability does not affect creatures that have immunity to extra damage from critical hits.

1. Bane
2. Bear's Endurance
3. Bestow Curse
4. Enervation
5. Feeblemind
6. Harm
7. Waves of Exhaustion
8. Horrid Wilting
9. Energy Drain

Bestow Curse and Pain Touch are cool?

They don't have the [Evil] descriptor so they're okay.

To be honest I think this entire domain's spellset pushes the boundaries for Ilmater, but he's a strange divinity about this by any measure.

Edit: If it were up to me, energy drain spells would have the [Evil] descriptor, though I don't care enough to houserule it since a few favorite spells are things like enervation.

Added the Initiate of Alicia feat and the revised Suffering Domain to the House Rules. Yuth, were you going to take that mists feat you were interested in? If so I'll add it as well.

Yuth, this is from the PM on IRC I sent you. If you see this after you've replied there don't worry about replying here. If not, by all means gimme a line here.

Were you interested in that Elemental Archon class from Faiths and Pantheons? If you were I'll rewrite it for psionics. If not I just don't wanna go to the effort for nothing.

Edit: Also posted a new PrC, feedback welcome as always.

It looks like a solid PrC, although I can't help but wonder if Sylica went through some sort of Stalinist purge to write Marie out of the history books considering she's unrepresented while Jessica is.

Hahahahhaa. Nah, she just ended up being the odd one out when I thought up concepts for this. I guess I could include her and make it a six level PrC.

Posted revised Silverstar. I stayed as close to the original class as possible, only fixing a few stupid points and updating the entire thing.

Working on that Elemental Archon PrC for Yuth. As a related note, if any of you are interested in Faiths and Pantheons classes, talk to me. Most of them have horribly designed entry requirements, most of them will get toned down.

Belated response on some things.

Initiate of Alicia: The Know Vulnerability stands out, sorta. It's such a boring spell, too. I guess paladins can quicken it with a feat? Anyway, why not drop it to lvl3 for them?

Crusader prc: Already commented, looks great, my only comment on all paladin features remains the 1/week issue. So sad....

Survivor prc: Isn't improved mettle epic? I think the class is a lot better in gestalt than it would be under any normal circumstances, especially since even a dip into it turns out better (rogue 2/survivor 2 can swap evasion for spell turning and have them both, for example). It's definitely a class you want to take to avoid dying, and the other side of gestalt can take care of killing everything. Skills are just too sparse; you can always add all sorts of physical ones like swim/jump/etc. I also don't like the prereqs, feat-wise. They're perfect for certain types of character and for your favorite NPC build. I think it would be better to diversify there and have it a real choice of whether people want to become survivors. I don't have a concrete suggestion, but I'd propose ditching Toughness and not having the second of the feats be a feat you get for free from a base class (such as Endurance). Maybe use something like those Spelltouched feats? http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/buildingCharacters/spelltouchedFeats.htm

Knight prc: I know you said it was mostly for fun, but I have a couple thoughts just in case. I know plenty prcs have 1st lvl spells as prereq, but it looks kinda weird here to me. It's a terrible shame that a level of casting is lost. I guess Ordained Champion also did it.... I don't really think it needs to be an Exalted prc, to be honest, feat nonwithstanding. Good should be good enough, bad pun nonwithstanding.

Silverstar prc: Will Balyss become a lycanthrope? >_> Anyway, I know you're just redesigning it, not remaking it, but I'd like to make a suggestion of changing some names around. I get the theme, I really do, but when everything you have is moon this and luna that, they tend to mesh together. Kinda like how so many angels in B1 had similar names, which makes sense but also makes it harder to keep them apart?

Elemental Archon prc: It's not the sort of fluff that draws me, alas. No comment, I'm afraid.

Quote from: Corwin on April 11, 2011, 07:25:30 AMInitiate of Alicia: The Know Vulnerability stands out, sorta. It's such a boring spell, too. I guess paladins can quicken it with a feat? Anyway, why not drop it to lvl3 for them?

On checking you're right. I used the sorc/wiz level for it and I really should have used the cleric level for it, which is 3.

QuoteSurvivor prc: Isn't improved mettle epic? I think the class is a lot better in gestalt than it would be under any normal circumstances, especially since even a dip into it turns out better (rogue 2/survivor 2 can swap evasion for spell turning and have them both, for example). It's definitely a class you want to take to avoid dying, and the other side of gestalt can take care of killing everything. Skills are just too sparse; you can always add all sorts of physical ones like swim/jump/etc. I also don't like the prereqs, feat-wise. They're perfect for certain types of character and for your favorite NPC build. I think it would be better to diversify there and have it a real choice of whether people want to become survivors. I don't have a concrete suggestion, but I'd propose ditching Toughness and not having the second of the feats be a feat you get for free from a base class (such as Endurance). Maybe use something like those Spelltouched feats? http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/buildingCharacters/spelltouchedFeats.htm

Improved Mettle shows up once or twice non epic. It's not a common ability in any event.

Honestly the feat pre-reqs are fine. They fit someone who's trying to survive and endure, which lines up with the thematics of the class perfectly. That all said I'm not sure it matters, since I don't think I'm going to use it or allow it. Revised survivor's a little too good in gestalt for my tastes. Getting that entire line in 5 levels feels like a good bandage for a baddie or two, but having it out there easily for everyone is...meh.

QuoteSilverstar prc: Will Balyss become a lycanthrope? >_> Anyway, I know you're just redesigning it, not remaking it, but I'd like to make a suggestion of changing some names around. I get the theme, I really do, but when everything you have is moon this and luna that, they tend to mesh together. Kinda like how so many angels in B1 had similar names, which makes sense but also makes it harder to keep them apart?

Funny story! Balyss is a native outsider since she's an aasimar. Lycanthropy only affects humanoids and giants. So the chances of Balyss becoming one is quite low, unless I decide to work that into her. I'm not going to worry about that 'till it's a lot closer. As for the rest of it, I could, but it doesn't bother me and it's an NPC's class. Conservation of DMing effort kicks into effect, in other words. <_<

House rule post. Half orcs are now +2 str and -2 cha, instead of +2 str and -2 cha and int. This is a change I approve of, though I hadn't bothered with it since it wasn't relevant until now.

OKAY!

What are you guys going to want to do between now and going to Senaril's domain? Let me know so I can plan it out and have things run smoothly tomorrow. Get your ducks in a row in here.

Unless Lyris indicates any sort of time pressure, go back to Balmuria, get my sight back, buy some potions/scrolls of cure blindness, go back and kick ass.

Ask Lyris if she believes it is time-critical to go to Senaril's realm RIGHT NOW and stop her or if she's not ready to unleash her fiendish plot just yet and we can wait a day.

Assuming we wait, then we return to Balmuria, cure Janson, pick up a few potions of curing blindness, fill Josa in on everything and ask him to inform the Guard, and head right back in. I'd suggest anyone who doesn't have anti-fey weapons to get something suitable, but that's pretty obvious. As Lyris can show us the way inside, she can presumably show us how to get to Senaril within her realm. If she can't, we'll walk around till we find her or Marianne. That's it~

Added a new ACF to custom crap. It's for factotums.

At first I just converted everything from blood to fire. On the second pass, I decided to shift some abilities and replace a couple others, since it made more sense to have your fire spells autoset people on fire (rather than force some lame dc15 reflex save) than give you X potions per day. Fluff and desc suck, but they're mostly here to describe the intent and show how I think it can work mechanically. I also started out with an element-neutral class (for example, secondary effect: Acid/sickened, Cold/blinded, Electricity/entangled, Fire/dazed, Sound/defeaned) but in the end decided to just focus on fire. If this works, fluff for a specific element can be easier to come up with, and it would work as is for the rest, too.


Firegirl!

Prereqs:
Great Fortitude, Toughness
Arcane caster level 5
Must have fire immunity

Skills:
2+Int

Spellcasting/BAB/Saves:
As in the original: http://i52.tinypic.com/6h6e50.png


Special:

1st, Essence of Fire (Su): You have learned to incorporate tiny bits of your very essence in your fire spells! This increases the spell's power by raising the spell's caster level by 1.

2nd, Pyrosynthesis (Ex): Your link to your fiery nature strengthens. Whenever you cast a fire spell or are a target of such a spell yourself, you recover HP equal to the spell level. If you reach or are at maximum health, this power has no effect.

3rd, Energy Vulnerability (Sp): You can use Energy Vulnerability (PHB2 p113) as the spell once per day. You can only make your target vulnerable to fire.

4th, Elemental Fury (Su): Up to six times per day, you can enhance fire spells to unprecedented heights! If your spell hits, another effect discharges automatically with an unparalleled fury, doing continuous 1d6 elemental damage to your target each round by agonizingly setting the target on fire until they either take a full round action to smother the flames consuming them or dispel the effect.

5th, Recruit Elemental (Su): You may bond with a medium fire elemental as your familiar.
5th, Essence of Fire, Greater (Su): You can incorporate more of your essence into your fire spells, raising the spell's caster level by another 1 to a total of +2. The DC of your fire spells also raises by +1.

6th, Elemental Wrath (Su): Not only can you imbue your spells with your essence, you can guide them just as easily as if they were your very extremities! Several times a day (your level in this class + Con) your fire spells can be charged with a secondary effect if the spell hits. For one round (Fort DC negates) your targets are dazed.

8th, Burn the Heretic! (Su): Once a day with a melee touch attack, as a standard action that does not provoke attacks of opportunity, you can deal 10d10 points of fire damage to your target if they are vulnerable to fire. The effect is instanteneous. If you fail to hit, you can try to use this ability again the same day.

9th, Apotheosis (Ex): Your increasing encorporation of fiery energy into your spirit enriches it, bringing you vitality. You gain a 2-point increase to your Constitution score.

10th, Firestride (Su): You become fully attuned to fire in ways you could once only dream of! Once per day as a standard action that does not provoke attacks of opportunity, you can transport yourself to any source of fire, magical or nonmagical, that you can see. The targets of your successful Elemental Fury count as such sources until the secondary damage has been neutralized. You emerge at any unoccupied point within 5ft of your chosen destination. You can choose to display the true supermacy of the flames above all else upon exiting, causing a massive fiery explosion for a radius of 30ft around the point where you emerge. The explosion deals 10d6 points of damage and dazes everyone in the affected area for one round as a secondary effect (Fort DC 10+class level+Con for halved damage and no secondary effect).

Added a houserule to fix divine crusader casting.

Quote from: Corwin on April 14, 2011, 01:42:14 PMGreat Fortitude, Toughness

Those are outdated. I'd chose different prerequisite feats now. More on this below with the con booster.

Quote1st, Essence of Fire (Su): You have learned to incorporate tiny bits of your very essence in your fire spells! This increases the spell's power by raising the spell's caster level by 1.

Is this just a flat +1 boost to caster level? Do you mean for it to still do HP damage like Blood Magus?

Quote2nd, Pyrosynthesis (Ex): Your link to your fiery nature strengthens. Whenever you cast a fire spell or are a target of such a spell yourself, you recover HP equal to the spell level. If you reach or are at maximum health, this power has no effect.

Okay, that's a nice ability, though way better than what it replaces(Scarification?) .

Quote3rd, Energy Vulnerability (Sp): You can use Energy Vulnerability (PHB2 p113) as the spell once per day. You can only make your target vulnerable to fire.

This is again way better than what it replaces(Death Knell.). Granted, Death Knell is a crappy spell any which way.

Quote4th, Elemental Fury (Su): Up to six times per day, you can enhance fire spells to unprecedented heights! If your spell hits, another effect discharges automatically with an unparalleled fury, doing continuous 1d6 elemental damage to your target each round by agonizingly setting the target on fire until they either take a full round action to smother the flames consuming them or dispel the effect.

How do they dispel the effect? That needs to be elaborated on, especially if you mean by dispel magic.

That's a step down from blood drought, though not a serious one. On the other hand it's a marked improvement over Bloodfeeder Spell.

Quote5th, Recruit Elemental (Su): You may bond with a medium fire elemental as your familiar.

This needs some mechanical work (Read how improved familiar deals with this). The ability is fine otherwise.

OOC I'm not a fan of it, since I usually don't bring in familiars to NPC casters. It's just another level of complexity I prefer to avoid. I don't mind you guys having friends, but I don't want to get into situations where the friends bring friends along and it turns into a recursive DMing headache.

Quote5th, Essence of Fire, Greater (Su): You can incorporate more of your essence into your fire spells, raising the spell's caster level by another 1 to a total of +2. The DC of your fire spells also raises by +1.

Okay, looks fine pending the question about the regular old Essence of Fire.

Quote6th, Elemental Wrath (Su): Not only can you imbue your spells with your essence, you can guide them just as easily as if they were your very extremities! Several times a day (your level in this class + Con) your fire spells can be charged with a secondary effect if the spell hits. For one round (Fort DC negates) your targets are dazed.

This ability looks completely original and pretty potent. Adding disablement to attacking spells is nice, basically making nay fire spell have Orb of Fire's secondary ability.

Quote8th, Burn the Heretic! (Su): Once a day with a melee touch attack, as a standard action that does not provoke attacks of opportunity, you can deal 10d10 points of fire damage to your target if they are vulnerable to fire. The effect is instanteneous. If you fail to hit, you can try to use this ability again the same day.

I'd rewrite this. A touch attack deals 10d10 points of fire damage - you don't need the vulnerable bit, unless you intend for it to only work on creatures vulnerable to fire in the mechanical sense?

Quote9th, Apotheosis (Ex): Your increasing encorporation of fiery energy into your spirit enriches it, bringing you vitality. You gain a 2-point increase to your Constitution score.

This ability doesn't really mesh with the rest of the class now. It's all about fire and burning things, and one of the pre-requisites to the class is fire immunity. There's not much of a line or reason that this class toughens you up like Blood Magus does. As much as Simmer wants more con, it feels like a relic of Blood Magus.

Quote10th, Firestride (Su): You become fully attuned to fire in ways you could once only dream of! Once per day as a standard action that does not provoke attacks of opportunity, you can transport yourself to any source of fire, magical or nonmagical, that you can see. The targets of your successful Elemental Fury count as such sources until the secondary damage has been neutralized. You emerge at any unoccupied point within 5ft of your chosen destination. You can choose to display the true supermacy of the flames above all else upon exiting, causing a massive fiery explosion for a radius of 30ft around the point where you emerge. The explosion deals 10d6 points of damage and dazes everyone in the affected area for one round as a secondary effect (Fort DC 10+class level+Con for halved damage and no secondary effect).

Okay, that looks fine.

---

Most of this looks fine, albeit better than Blood Magus. There's only one real issue, and that's the disconnect between Blood Magus and this class. One of the big things for Blood Magus is needing Great Fortitude and Toughness to do what you're doing.  You constantly use your own blood and strengthen yourself with it. So the pre-reqs make sense, as does the con booster down the line. In this revision those don't jive with the rest of it. Most of it's fine otherwise.

While the familiar at 5th level is fine mechanically, I'd prefer to avoid it for the reasons listed there.

-Prereqs and the con boost. I left them there since it wasn't that important, and I figured if you'd like the approach you'd just change them. I mean, you can argue Dex means more sense, or a casting stat, but I remember the chat in #e about key stats, and Con fits everyone and everything so I just kept it as is. Same with the prereqs. They might've made sense thematically in blood magus, but stuff like great fortitude is really just there to force you to waste a feat on something weak, first and foremost. I can see Energy Substitution (Fire) being there pretty easily, if you're asking me for my opinion on better options.

-Yes, it's a flat +1 to Fire Spells CL. This would include any and all spells with the Fire descriptor that you can cast. Fireball is eligible, Energy Substitutioned Lightning Bolt is cool, etc. I ended up deciding to axe the 1 hp damage. It was kinda pointless, and in any case, I axed the Eschew Materials benefit at the same time.

-In fact, after axing the self-caused damage I started wondering about why not just imitate that epic feat about healing from a swim in the lava and actually giving hp/temp hp? I didn't want to bother with stating when temp hp would and wouldn't stack, so I just went with hp recovery in the end. It's pretty ineffective so I don't think it can be abused, and it can always be explicitly stated this doesn't work on Sp, so there'd be no infinite healing spam. Replacement-wise, I would consider it to be standing in for scarification, durable casting and stanch, which are kinda awesome together.

-Yeah, the Sp part is where I had to go for thematic. Death Knell is shit, but there are too few spells that fit well here. From personal experience, Energy Vulnerability isn't that good (it gives you a save for negation, along with other things, and you have better things to do with your standard action than that). It's also limited to one element here, which I figured worked well enough. Yeah, it's a class based on a single element, but that in no way says you'll never face enemies immune to your fire or strongly resistant to it. In any case, at 1/day it's not really a big deal, I think.

-The way I imagined it and tried to write it up, this is lingering damage. Basically, the spell's secondary effect doing damage to you is the same as if the spell was still cast on you. Therefore, just like how you would dispel an original spell if it had duration instead of 'instantaneous', you'd dispel these secondary effects. I don't know if you strictly need to leave in the dispel option, to be honest. The idea was to make setting people on fire awesome, like FantasyCraft does (although FC does it lots better).

-On familiars, I figure it can just say 'you gain the improved familiar feat, and can only pick something related to your element' and call it a day. Also, while I didn't get into it here, I had that very thought. I dealt with it by deciding it's an ability that can have an ACF, but really left it to you if you wanted to change it. For example, just like a sorc can have use metamagic'd spells X times per day without raising casting time instead of a familiar, some ACF could exist here that builds up on that and, say, gives you the benefit of 'reduce metamagic cost on your fire spells X times per day'.

-I basically like it when things progress in a class rather than look to be strewn together. This is a class about becoming more and more 'one with fire', whether through using it more, or turning a part of yourself into it or literally ripping off parts of yourself to toss them at others and watch them explode. So anyway, this would give you +1 CL more and +1 DC to your fire spells.

-I tried to deal with the issue of Orbs being awesome and used disproportionally. Some of it really is because they are that good. But some of it is because it's cool to have your spells do weird secondary effects that briefly disable your enemies. It's not really one to one conversion, but I took the lvl4 and lvl6 abilities together. If you think this is better than the original lvl6 and the new lvl4 ability is less good than the original one, then I'd just ask you what you think of two compared to two.

-Huh, you didn't like it? It's taken pretty straight from Blood Magus. The vulnerability was there for several reasons. It's a slight nerf, since it limits who you can use it on. It's nice thematically, since it feels a bit like a smite against your opposites. And it gives you a reason to use Energy Vulnerability, which you normally wouldn't try. I like the idea of having abilities build on each other. In case it wasn't clear, vulnerable was in the mechanical sense, yes. So normal humans wouldn't be eligible targets. But Cold creatures, ice mephits, silver dragons, people hit with EV, they'd be the ones you can touch with this.

-I'd say that if you take out a stat bonus, you should probably add a spell level to compensate. As is, the class misses two. But I actually think some sort of stat boost can be here, as I wrote at the start.

-Overall, it's nice to hear there are no major mechanical issues. Blood Magus is just really creepy, although mechanically it's fairly good. It has no serious limits, be they targets or people you work with. His potions can be used on other people, Bloodwalk is so awesome it's like Greater Teleport with benefits, and it just might be the only class that can actually maintain concentration on a spell while attacked to disrupt it. The Homunculus is probably good enough to allow you to take an ACF for a familiar as well, and if you just see some of the abilities as feats, he gets an awful lot of item creation ones. Possibly enough to pass prereqs for some pretty stingy prcs. I've tried to keep the theme of obsessing over a single part of yourself. For people, it would be blood. For those who are part-element, it would be said element. If you are a creature of Fire, then fire is a part of you, and so why not build up on that, same way you would with blood? My fluff was seriously weak, but I'm sure something can be written to makes the link between your class abilities and your very nature closer and better-defined. Your powers with fire are shown to steadily grow as you progress, and you learn to do more unique things with them. And did I mention I think it's cool to tear off a tiny piece of your spirit and mix it with your spells to set other people on fire?

Anyway, I explained my reasons for deviating from just copying the Blood Magus ability for ability. I'm already happy with not being told it was a dumb write-up. Whether it is seen it as a reworked Blood Magus or as a prc that stands on its own and was only slightly inspired by Blood Magus really doesn't matter to me, I think, all in all. If you liked the idea enough to work at it and make it available as a prc in the game, that's cool. If it doesn't grab you, that's also cool, since like I said I was already happy with the mechanical part.

Re: Merc's new PC.

- So what exactly are Azurin? Elaborate here and how they fit into a typical human society.

- Most of the names in the Fiefdoms are Turkish or Arabic. You'll stand out a little bit to someone knowledgeable about the area if it comes up, since your name doesn't match the style at all. Fair warning.

- For incarnum I'm going to run with 'it's really rare but known of recently, one of the new forms of magic coming out.' Sort of the idea I'm using for Yuth and Psionics, though maybe 10-15 years ahead of that. This is as far as knowledge in this corner of the Prime goes, the planes and other realms are a completely different affair.

- Contacts are fine and can help ease you in. This is good.

- Your CMB/CMD look wrong to me. Can you run through how you got those values?

- You radiate an aura of law, yes? What strength is it?

- That's a nice image of your skill list that you have spoilered. Is that a program or did you do it by hand?

- So what exactly are Azurin? Elaborate here and how they fit into a typical human society.
Azurin are honestly just humans touched by incarnum, it gives them blue-ish eyes and the subtype incarnum (which itself just gives them an essentia pool), and instead of +1 skill/lv they get +1 essentia. I very vaguely commented on that.

- Most of the names in the Fiefdoms are Turkish or Arabic. You'll stand out a little bit to someone knowledgeable about the area if it comes up, since your name doesn't match the style at all. Fair warning.
I'll change the name, not attached to it or I could just say I come from somewhere in one of the baronies. I liked the idea of trying something different though. So probably a name change and I might hit you for more DF-ish info.

- For incarnum I'm going to run with 'it's really rare but known of recently, one of the new forms of magic coming out.' Sort of the idea I'm using for Yuth and Psionics, though maybe 10-15 years ahead of that. This is as far as knowledge in this corner of the Prime goes, the planes and other realms are a completely different affair.
That's what I was imagining, honestly.

- Contacts are fine and can help ease you in. This is good.
That was the idea!

- Your CMB/CMD look wrong to me. Can you run through how you got those values?
It is wrong, actually. I forgot to fix when I moved around some ability scores (used to have Str +2 instead of +1). I'd used http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/combat#TOC-Combat-Maneuver-Defense for formula for those since I didn't see it in house rules if it was different.

Assuming CMB is BAB+Str, it should be +7, and CMD = 10+CMB+dex = 10+7+4=21. So it should be +6/+7/21

- You radiate an aura of law, yes? What strength is it?
Equal to incarnate level. Functions like a cleric's aura.

- That's a nice image of your skill list that you have spoilered. Is that a program or did you do it by hand?
Excel spreadsheet actually. I just tossed it into photoshop and cropped it.

Quote from: Corwin on April 15, 2011, 04:05:52 PM-Prereqs and the con boost. I left them there since it wasn't that important, and I figured if you'd like the approach you'd just change them. I mean, you can argue Dex means more sense, or a casting stat, but I remember the chat in #e about key stats, and Con fits everyone and everything so I just kept it as is. Same with the prereqs. They might've made sense thematically in blood magus, but stuff like great fortitude is really just there to force you to waste a feat on something weak, first and foremost. I can see Energy Substitution (Fire) being there pretty easily, if you're asking me for my opinion on better options.

Well yeah, everyone wants con. Still, I don't think it fits the class or does any particular ability increase.

I'd consider feats like energy substitution(fire), searing spell, fiery spell and that ilk for prerequisites. Anything that focuses on fire is good.

Quote-Yes, it's a flat +1 to Fire Spells CL. This would include any and all spells with the Fire descriptor that you can cast. Fireball is eligible, Energy Substitutioned Lightning Bolt is cool, etc. I ended up deciding to axe the 1 hp damage. It was kinda pointless, and in any case, I axed the Eschew Materials benefit at the same time.

Anything with the fire descriptor then, yeah.

Quote-In fact, after axing the self-caused damage I started wondering about why not just imitate that epic feat about healing from a swim in the lava and actually giving hp/temp hp? I didn't want to bother with stating when temp hp would and wouldn't stack, so I just went with hp recovery in the end. It's pretty ineffective so I don't think it can be abused, and it can always be explicitly stated this doesn't work on Sp, so there'd be no infinite healing spam. Replacement-wise, I would consider it to be standing in for scarification, durable casting and stanch, which are kinda awesome together.

It's an interesting ability and draws on the more positive aspects of fire - purification and a phoenix like rebirth in the flames. I'd run with this, it makes a decent base to build the class and flavor on.

Quote-Yeah, the Sp part is where I had to go for thematic. Death Knell is shit, but there are too few spells that fit well here. From personal experience, Energy Vulnerability isn't that good (it gives you a save for negation, along with other things, and you have better things to do with your standard action than that). It's also limited to one element here, which I figured worked well enough. Yeah, it's a class based on a single element, but that in no way says you'll never face enemies immune to your fire or strongly resistant to it. In any case, at 1/day it's not really a big deal, I think.

It's fine as an ability. It's stronger, but yeah, Death Knell blows.

Quote-The way I imagined it and tried to write it up, this is lingering damage. Basically, the spell's secondary effect doing damage to you is the same as if the spell was still cast on you. Therefore, just like how you would dispel an original spell if it had duration instead of 'instantaneous', you'd dispel these secondary effects. I don't know if you strictly need to leave in the dispel option, to be honest. The idea was to make setting people on fire awesome, like FantasyCraft does (although FC does it lots better).

Okay. That makes sense, it's a question of DnD language and phrasing from there. This isn't that important right now, more of a final draft thing.

Quote-On familiars, I figure it can just say 'you gain the improved familiar feat, and can only pick something related to your element' and call it a day. Also, while I didn't get into it here, I had that very thought. I dealt with it by deciding it's an ability that can have an ACF, but really left it to you if you wanted to change it. For example, just like a sorc can have use metamagic'd spells X times per day without raising casting time instead of a familiar, some ACF could exist here that builds up on that and, say, gives you the benefit of 'reduce metamagic cost on your fire spells X times per day'.

Okay.

Go ahead and replace it with something. It's a fine ability, but I don't want to deal with a constant familiar for Simmer.

Quote-I basically like it when things progress in a class rather than look to be strewn together. This is a class about becoming more and more 'one with fire', whether through using it more, or turning a part of yourself into it or literally ripping off parts of yourself to toss them at others and watch them explode. So anyway, this would give you +1 CL more and +1 DC to your fire spells.

That's fine.

Quote-Huh, you didn't like it? It's taken pretty straight from Blood Magus. The vulnerability was there for several reasons. It's a slight nerf, since it limits who you can use it on. It's nice thematically, since it feels a bit like a smite against your opposites. And it gives you a reason to use Energy Vulnerability, which you normally wouldn't try. I like the idea of having abilities build on each other. In case it wasn't clear, vulnerable was in the mechanical sense, yes. So normal humans wouldn't be eligible targets. But Cold creatures, ice mephits, silver dragons, people hit with EV, they'd be the ones you can touch with this.

I don't dislike it, but just think it needs to be rewritten.

I think it only working on fire-weak creatures is a fairly big nerf. The corresponding ability works as long as it isn't an elemental/construct/undead or whatever. This leaves a large pool of things to target with it. On the other hand, the number of fire-weak creatures is much lower, and by that point there's little reason to use a round on energy vulnerability for 10d10 touch, when you can do better with a typical spell. It's a nice bit of comboing, but it's not very effective for that reason.

Quote-I'd say that if you take out a stat bonus, you should probably add a spell level to compensate. As is, the class misses two. But I actually think some sort of stat boost can be here, as I wrote at the start.

That or add in a new ability altogether.

---

Let me think about it and twist this 'round and 'round and 'round. There's no serious problems with it and it's fine enough work. There is one thing you CAN do, though! See this below? That's the table code I use for PrCs. You know what fucking sucks about them? If you said 'filling them out', you're absolutely correct! It's fucking tedious as hell, so I challenge YOU to copy that table and nicely fill it out! Go glance at the last few PrCs in Custom Crap if you're curious to how it's supposed to look. Just fiddle with a bit to get an idea of how it works.

Please? >_>

[tr]
[td] row 1, column 1 [/td]
[td] row 1, column 2 [/td]
[td] row 1, column 3 [/td]
[td] row 1, column 4 [/td]
[td] row 1, column 5 [/td]
[td] row 1, column 6 [/td]
[td] row 1, column 7 [/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td] row 2, column 1 [/td]
[td] row 2, column 2 [/td]
[td] row 2, column 3 [/td]
[td] row 2, column 4 [/td]
[td] row 2, column 5 [/td]
[td] row 2, column 6 [/td]
[td] row 2, column 7 [/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td] row 3, column 1 [/td]
[td] row 3, column 2 [/td]
[td] row 3, column 3 [/td]
[td] row 3, column 4 [/td]
[td] row 3, column 5 [/td]
[td] row 3, column 6 [/td]
[td] row 3, column 7 [/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td] row 4, column 1 [/td]
[td] row 4, column 2 [/td]
[td] row 4, column 3 [/td]
[td] row 4, column 4 [/td]
[td] row 4, column 5 [/td]
[td] row 4, column 6 [/td]
[td] row 4, column 7 [/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td] row 5, column 1 [/td]
[td] row 5, column 2 [/td]
[td] row 5, column 3 [/td]
[td] row 5, column 4 [/td]
[td] row 5, column 5 [/td]
[td] row 5, column 6 [/td]
[td] row 5, column 7 [/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td] row 6, column 1 [/td]
[td] row 6, column 2 [/td]
[td] row 6, column 3 [/td]
[td] row 6, column 4 [/td]
[td] row 6, column 5 [/td]
[td] row 6, column 6 [/td]
[td] row 6, column 7 [/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td] row 7, column 1 [/td]
[td] row 7, column 2 [/td]
[td] row 7, column 3 [/td]
[td] row 7, column 4 [/td]
[td] row 7, column 5 [/td]
[td] row 7, column 6 [/td]
[td] row 7, column 7 [/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td] row 8, column 1 [/td]
[td] row 8, column 2 [/td]
[td] row 8, column 3 [/td]
[td] row 8, column 4 [/td]
[td] row 8, column 5 [/td]
[td] row 8, column 6 [/td]
[td] row 8, column 7 [/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td] row 9, column 1 [/td]
[td] row 9, column 2 [/td]
[td] row 9, column 3 [/td]
[td] row 9, column 4 [/td]
[td] row 9, column 5 [/td]
[td] row 9, column 6 [/td]
[td] row 9, column 7 [/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td] row 10, column 1 [/td]
[td] row 10, column 2 [/td]
[td] row 10, column 3 [/td]
[td] row 10, column 4 [/td]
[td] row 10, column 5 [/td]
[td] row 10, column 6 [/td]
[td] row 10, column 7 [/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td] row 11, column 1 [/td]
[td] row 11, column 2 [/td]
[td] row 11, column 3 [/td]
[td] row 11, column 4 [/td]
[td] row 11, column 5 [/td]
[td] row 11, column 6 [/td]
[td] row 11, column 7 [/td]
[/tr]
[/table]

Quote from: Merc on April 16, 2011, 01:15:13 AM
- So what exactly are Azurin? Elaborate here and how they fit into a typical human society.
Azurin are honestly just humans touched by incarnum, it gives them blue-ish eyes and the subtype incarnum (which itself just gives them an essentia pool), and instead of +1 skill/lv they get +1 essentia. I very vaguely commented on that.

Okay. Say you're a random mutant or have a magic bloodline or whatever. Hell, claim you're the result of a marut getting frisky with a barmaid. Whatever works - or no explanation at all, you were just born that way. In other words, it's fine.

Quote- Most of the names in the Fiefdoms are Turkish or Arabic. You'll stand out a little bit to someone knowledgeable about the area if it comes up, since your name doesn't match the style at all. Fair warning.
I'll change the name, not attached to it or I could just say I come from somewhere in one of the baronies. I liked the idea of trying something different though. So probably a name change and I might hit you for more DF-ish info.

Okay.

Honestly, what I do is google turkish names or arabic names and choose one.

For the rest, feel free to talk to me in PM so we can iron out any details you care to know.

Quote- Your CMB/CMD look wrong to me. Can you run through how you got those values?
It is wrong, actually. I forgot to fix when I moved around some ability scores (used to have Str +2 instead of +1). I'd used http://www.d20pfsrd.com/gamemastering/combat#TOC-Combat-Maneuver-Defense for formula for those since I didn't see it in house rules if it was different.

Assuming CMB is BAB+Str, it should be +7, and CMD = 10+CMB+dex = 10+7+4=21. So it should be +6/+7/21

You forgot miscellaneous modifiers. This includes things like deflection bonuses to armor class, which you have. So assuming +3 as noted on your sheet, your CMD should be 24.

Quote- You radiate an aura of law, yes? What strength is it?
Equal to incarnate level. Functions like a cleric's aura.

Okay, add the strength of the aura to your sheet? It's handy in case someone uses detect law.

Quote- That's a nice image of your skill list that you have spoilered. Is that a program or did you do it by hand?
Excel spreadsheet actually. I just tossed it into photoshop and cropped it.

Aw, I was hoping for a program. Ah well.


[/quote]

Quick clarification:

For tomorrow's session, we are gaming at the normal start time (12:45 PM EST) if possible. This wasn't made explicit when we planned this, so tossing this out there now. If this doesn't work for you, speak up now and I'll adjust the time.

This is a beta, some parts of it are missing. That's okay, don't worry about those. Feedback welcome, I went off in my own direction with this. The idea of life+fire appeals to Simmer, who is a fluke of nature that managed to combine the two.

Lord of the Bright Fires

Hit Die

d6

Requirements

Skills

Knowledge(Nature) 8 ranks.

Feats

Toughness, any one of fiery spell, searing spell or energy substitution(fire).

Essence of Fire (Su)

By channeling your own elemental nature, you strengthen your fire magic. You cast spells with the fire descriptor at +1 caster level.

Living Fire (Ex)

You represent fire and life entwined, always vital and always sustaining even as it b urns away old life to make way for new life. You lost access to any spell that causes energy drain or inflicts negative energy damage, these spells are removed from your spell lists.

Pyrosynthesis (Su)

The purifying and vital power of positive energy laced fire suffuses your being. Whenever you cast a spell with the fire descriptor, you heal hit points equal to it's spell level. For example, casting fireball heals you three hit points. You cannot go above your maximum hit points with this ability.

Energy Vulnerability (Sp)

You can use Energy Vulnerability (PHB2 p113) as the spell once per day. You can only make your target vulnerable to fire.

Elemental Fury (Su)

Through the living fury of fire, you can cause your foes to burn even after your spell concludes, imbued with a tiny fragment of life. Any time you deal damage to a target with a spell with the fire descriptor, they catch ablaze. This deals 1d6 damage per round(no save) until the flames are extinguished. This may be done by mundane means, as well as by dispel magic. Treat this ability as a spell effect equal to the caster level of the <class name goes here> for the sake of dispel magic.

Greater Essence of Fire (Su)

Your mastery of the flames increases. Your bonus to your caster level when casting spells with the fire descriptor rises by 1, to a total of +2. In addition, the DC of any spells you cast with the fire descriptor rises by 1.

Elemental Wrath (Su)

Through the overwhelming energy of positive fire, you are able to overwhelm your foes. A number of times a day equal to your main casting stat(Intelligence for wizards, charisma for sorcerers, for example), you may designate a spell with the fire descriptor, that deals damage and allows a saving throw for partial/no effect as overwhelming. An overwhelming spell leaves the victim dazed for one round if the saving throw is failed, due to being overwhelmed with the raw elemental vitality of fire.

Burn the Heretic! (Su)

At 8th level your touch can cause some of the creature's lifeforce to explode into fire. Once per day you may make a melee touch attack against a creature. If successful you deal 10d10 points of fire damage, as lifeforce is transformed into white flames that explode out of the victim's body in all directions. If you fail to hit, this ability is not expended. Non-living creatures such as undead and constructs are immune to this ability.

Shield of Fire (Su)

At 9th level the <insert class name> is constantly surrounded by vibrant white flames. This raw life force shields her own vitality, rendering her immune to energy drain and negative energy damage.

Fiery Life (Ex)

At 10th level your constant conduit to fire has further bolstered you. Your constitution rises by 2 points.

A comment on the Fury. Since dousing flames in D&D is really easy, just make a note that merely using water or cold or whichever is not enough? I think it works best if you have to give up a standard/full round action to no longer be set on fire. Another suggestion is reducing the lost casting levels to one in the current setup.

Sure, I'll look into it tonight.

Quote from: Corwin on April 16, 2011, 02:55:44 PM
A comment on the Fury. Since dousing flames in D&D is really easy, just make a note that merely using water or cold or whichever is not enough? I think it works best if you have to give up a standard/full round action to no longer be set on fire. Another suggestion is reducing the lost casting levels to one in the current setup.

I edited it so that the flames go out on their own. If you spend effort mid-fight going into water, splashing yourself with water or rolling on the ground that does as desired. Alternately they can be dispelled, and unless you're fighting something unusual that takes an action as well.

Merc and Yuth, I'm hoping to get Merc into the game sometime this week and Yuth a little after. I'll need a day to wrap up things tomorrow, and probably Wednesday for some wrapup with Janson and Sylvie and other stuff. So ideally Merc on Thursday and Yuth either Friday or next week, depending on how it goes.

Tomorrow's priority is getting all of Aaeru's stuff done, or as much as possible before Cor goes on vacation.

Re: Sylvie's build.

Next level is Factotum 5//Swashbuckler 3. After that? I'm not quite sure, suspects below. She is sticking with exemplar, though, but that's several levels away.

Classes

Fighter 1: Could be useful for a bonus feat or to get a pre-req in order. Depends on any possible PrC access before Exemplar.
Monk 3: +10ft movement speed isn't bad, and it bumps her unarmed strikes up to 1d10. She may want an ACF for Still Mind, I'll look into it.
Caster dip: Unlikely to do, but varying bonuses. See Master of Masks below.
Ranger 1: Favored Enemy(Fey) is a valid choice for her after all that trauma. It's probably not worth it, though.
Swashbuckler 4: Unlikely, Swashbuckler drops off in use after level 3.
Rogue 1: Unlikely unless she needs sneak attack to get into an appealing PrC. If she does, taking level 2 of it is a slam dunk for improved evasion.
Scout 1: Eh, skirmish isn't bad but it's probably not worth it.
Warlock 1: There's some appeal with a few of the abilities. It makes a solid dip, though it's not outstanding. Best thing for her is a few levels, picking up one of the skill boosters and see invisibility+darkvision.

PrCs

Any PrC that's 10 levels wouldn't be finished anytime soon, if ever. Exemplar has priority.

Master of Masks: Cor suggested this. It would beg a caster dip if she goes into it at all, since it has some casting progression. It's possible and it sorta fits her, but I really need to read up on the masks and see how they stack up. I'm also lukewarm on dipping a casting class.
Nightsong Enforcer: Requires a fighter dip for improved initiative, grants her some SA and a few other helpful goodies for the party. Not bad, not great.
Occult Slayer: Always a decent option for fighter types, though the flavor doesn't really mesh with her. She'd need to dip fighter 2 before going in. She could finish it before Exemplar, though.
Death Delver: She easily qualifies for this and it has some interesting abilities, as well as minor spellcasting. It would need a few tweaks but it's an interesting idea. I like how it fits, flavorwise.
Chameleon: Requires a throwaway feat(Though I might houserule Jack of All Trades also qualifies), but opens up a lot of possibilities. I may pass on it simply because it's a headache, though.

New house rule: No, you cannot play a tandem of Dawson and Pacey from Dawson's Creek. Singing the theme song is right out.

DMing: Driving me to drink one day at a time.

Dawson and Pacey Leery, two young dwarves with a lot on their minds.

We must explore every avenue of this potential drama! For the sake of money!

I like Master of Masks because the fluff is nice, because it fits, and because while it's hardly overwhelming the synergy with her current skillset and Factotum is very nice. There are good skill bonuses and SLAs she can get from it, and Assassin and Gladiator alone boost attack and damage pretty decently, not to mention stack with Factotum and K:D's bonuses.

Even without casting it's neat, but if she dips a single level of something (beguiler or achivist might be interesting, considering her nature) it becomes loads better, too. Wizard is also obvious, and duskblade and sorc also bring their own benefits.

Death Delver: I don't really see how a class that worships death fits her, to be honest. Rebuking and fear aura are weird, and casting goes off wis. The capstone and death ward are nice, but that's about it for me.

Nightsong Enforcer: Nice class, overall. I know I'd appreciate the bonus SA, but this should really be about her and not about me.

Chameleon: Very nice mechanically. Kinda eh on coolness, but who needs it with that set of powers?

Exemplar: Kinda boring, all things considered. Maybe she'd like to stick to two of the prcs above, or Master of Masks and Paragnostic Apostle?

Thematics-wise, Master of Masks does sound funner than most of the other stuff suggested, and it would be neat to see it in use. I can see that giving Sylvie another source of weak-sauce casting alongside her factotum weak casting seems less appealing, so why not trade the Master of Mask's partial casting progression for better bab or a couple of bonus feats or something?

Quote from: Corwin on April 19, 2011, 04:46:39 AMI like Master of Masks because the fluff is nice, because it fits, and because while it's hardly overwhelming the synergy with her current skillset and Factotum is very nice. There are good skill bonuses and SLAs she can get from it, and Assassin and Gladiator alone boost attack and damage pretty decently, not to mention stack with Factotum and K:D's bonuses. Even without casting it's neat, but if she dips a single level of something (beguiler or archivist might be interesting, considering her nature) it becomes loads better, too. Wizard is also obvious, and duskblade and sorc also bring their own benefits.

The fluff on Master of Masks is fine, except the masks part. That's fairly unappealing to me, though it doesn't make or break the class.

The main thing is that if she goes to the hassle of dipping a casting class and then taking this, Chameleon does it better and fits her just as well. If I'm going to go to the hassle of dealing with this sort of thing, I may as well go all out, y'know?

QuoteDeath Delver: I don't really see how a class that worships death fits her, to be honest. Rebuking and fear aura are weird, and casting goes off wis. The capstone and death ward are nice, but that's about it for me.

The flavor is more like 'I've seen the worst death has' and dealing with those aftershocks. The casting is a bad fit for her, though I'm inclined to houserule the rebuking to turning for a few reasons. Main appeal of this class is getting into the world of divine feats.

QuoteNightsong Enforcer: Nice class, overall. I know I'd appreciate the bonus SA, but this should really be about her and not about me.

Basically. It's solid and if nothing else comes through she can go into it.

QuoteChameleon: Very nice mechanically. Kinda eh on coolness, but who needs it with that set of powers?

The powers are very much the 'cool' appeal of it, agreed. After all of this, making Sylvie more competent has a high level of appeal.

QuoteExemplar: Kinda boring, all things considered. Maybe she'd like to stick to two of the prcs above, or Master of Masks and Paragnostic Apostle?

I happen to like Exemplar. <_<

Quote from: Ebiris on April 19, 2011, 07:57:02 AM
Thematics-wise, Master of Masks does sound funner than most of the other stuff suggested, and it would be neat to see it in use. I can see that giving Sylvie another source of weak-sauce casting alongside her factotum weak casting seems less appealing, so why not trade the Master of Mask's partial casting progression for better bab or a couple of bonus feats or something?

I could fiddle with it, sure.

On thinking about it, my complaint Master of Masks is twofold. One, the flavor just doesn't appeal to me and the idea of Sylvie going around with a bunch of masks on just feels wrong. Two, it's outdone by Chameleon if I'm going to go to that hassle. The second point is certainly arguable, though the first is a matter of opinion.

You shouldn't have had her play dress up in her first appearance, then~  >_>

Chameleon is lots of fun, if you can be bothered going to the trouble of setting up her spellsets for its divine/arcane casting. If that appeals to you then by all means go nuts.

Rejiggered Sylvie's skill ranks a bit. Both Master of Masks and Chameleon need Bluff and Disguise ranks, so I got those in order since she's still in rebuild mode right now.

Moved Brent and Olan over to the Well of Souls. They ain't dead, but odds are they're not likely to show up much now, either. Or will they? Anyway, it's mostly just a administrative move.

Aaeru, question about Neveril. While she's not strictly speaking VoP, she doesn't seem to have any possessions. Do you care about her getting possessions or should she look into VoP as well? I distinctly don't care either way, VoP or gear can work fine.

I kinda like being unique with VoP, to be honest. Possessions-wise, I think it would be fine as long as they were to boost her (bardic-themed or stat boosters or what not) and not some loophole to give me stuff via items (like give extra attack 1/day to someone). Stuff like that unicorn pendant, for example, is neat. Stuff that heals people but only those who are also Good (wink, wink) feels too tailored to me. Do I make sense here?

Anyway, it really is up to her. If she doesn't like items, then she doesn't like items, case closed. If she wants stuff, then she has stuff. She's her own person. If she genuinely has no preference, go ahead and give her some items and see how it works out for her? She can always take the Vow later and it makes sense, whereas if she has the Vow and gets out of it for items it feels terribly cheesy.

Quote from: Corwin on April 19, 2011, 12:51:31 PM
I kinda like being unique with VoP, to be honest. Possessions-wise, I think it would be fine as long as they were to boost her (bardic-themed or stat boosters or what not) and not some loophole to give me stuff via items (like give extra attack 1/day to someone). Stuff like that unicorn pendant, for example, is neat. Stuff that heals people but only those who are also Good (wink, wink) feels too tailored to me. Do I make sense here?

Anyway, it really is up to her. If she doesn't like items, then she doesn't like items, case closed. If she wants stuff, then she has stuff. She's her own person. If she genuinely has no preference, go ahead and give her some items and see how it works out for her? She can always take the Vow later and it makes sense, whereas if she has the Vow and gets out of it for items it feels terribly cheesy.

Items then, at least for now. We'll see how that goes.

Added charming the blade to house rules. It's a modified version of charming the arrow from here: http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/fey/20030815a

I just love the image of Senaril 'charming' her weapons into hitting.

What's on your agenda coming up, Janson?

Talk to Lysanne for her advice on buying property and hiring servants in Balmuria.

Get to know Sylvie's family (given her mom has no name and her son is likely just figuring out sentences, this doesn't necessarily have to be RP'd).

Quote from: Ebiris on April 19, 2011, 05:13:04 PM
Talk to Lysanne for her advice on buying property and hiring servants in Balmuria.

Get to know Sylvie's family (given her mom has no name and her son is likely just figuring out sentences, this doesn't necessarily have to be RP'd).

I'd like to at least touch on them RPwise.

I have a few things of my own, we'll see how they work out tomorrow.

Dear Josa,

Swift Gale makes everyone equal partners and pays people a monthly retainer of 100 marks. It sounds very reasonable, and many orphans would be excited to see you adopt this business model.

Sincerely,
Aaeru

P.S.
Someone helped me write this.

Considering he takes fully half of everything...I think that's fair.

Chameleon House Rule:

When selecting a spell from the various arcane and divine class lists, the level of the spell on the most common list takes precedence. This is to prevent stuff like taking 1st level haste thanks to Trapsmith, or 5th level Polar Ray thanks to Duskblade.

Sorc/Wiz>Bard>Anything else SRD>Anything else.

Cleric>Druid>Paladin>Ranger>Anything else SRD>Anything else.

Second of all, if I do use this PrC I'm going to tread lightly. As written they can access any arcane or divine list with their focus. Not just cleric or wizard, but any list. Take a moment and think about that. Insane, isn't it?

There are several houses for sale within Balmuria. All are at least large houses if not mansions and of fine quality. Exact details below, feel free to pursue one IC and talk to the owner for more information. Sylvie also grumbles about people not mentioning any in-built libraries as selling points. The nerve!

Villa Ali - Villa Ali is located in the southwestern part of the New City. This large two story house is square shaped, with the center hollowed out into a large fruit garden. The style is in the Fiefdoms, with several hardier desert fruits trees planted. It includes four bedrooms, one outhouse and several chamber pots, a private sauna that connects to the Inferno below so there is always warm water, and it comes funished. All this for 2,000 marks! The owner, Ali of Tash, seems to be in a devil of a hurry to sell it.

Rising - A four story house, compact and built around winding stairs and interlocked rooms between levels. Often winding stairs or simply open gaps connect floors and rooms, features playing into one another like a controlled magic waterfall and magically tamed vines. The entire design is airy and open, designed so a breeze always blows through. It includes five bedrooms - three interconnect - one outhouse and several chamber pots an extra large kitchen. It is located in the New City, near the ruins of the Temple of Torm. It runs for 2,800 marks. The owner is unclear, though a mediator by the name of Callan Smooth is handling matters on his or her behalf.

House Moutan - A winter home of the Moutan clan of Tauret, it recently entered the market after the demise of the family scion. It is classical luxury, everything rich, expensive and secluded. The large grounds are in the Western Reaches, private with a large hedge maze that wraps around the front. Within are six bedrooms, two outhouses and special enchanted chamber pots that never need emptying, and an absolutely huge swimming pool with it's own bound small water elemental to keep things fresh, as well as with a heating option for hot springs in the winter months. It runs 1,900 marks.

Goldwatch - The former home of Mia Golddswar, Holycoin of Waukeen. It's done in gold colors all over, a rambling two story manor home in a classically baroque style. Everything is oversized, from the gardens outside to the bedrooms inside, to even the outhouse. It comes with three bedrooms, the typical spread of outhouses and chamber pots, an empty money vault basement, and an attached chapel, formerly to Waukeen but now desanctified. It's located in the Western Reaches, not far from Moonholm. The asking price is 2,000 marks.

As far as Janson's concerned it's a toss-up between House Moutan and Villa Ali, so pending discussions with the family Sylvie to see where their preferences lie we can take a look at them IC?

edit: Also any room can be a library, just add books!

Sheet audits, version new PCs of Yuth and Merc. Yuth first.

---

Scribe Scroll is a bonus feat granted by Wizard 1. Could you add that to your feat listing?

Your skills are short, talked to you about that on IRC so go ahead and fix that up.

Looks good otherwise.

---

Merc you look okay, not too much changed.

Whoops, forgot that, thanks.

Edit: No I didn't, it's under Class Features.

Well yeah, but it's a feat so could you add it to feats? I don't really want to have go diving around to find all your feats.

Fixed

Thanks!

Posted three houserules about Chameleon.

The first is allowing Jack of All Trades to serve as the feat pre-requisite. Both that and Able Learner are addressing the same general idea, so I'm fine with this. As an aside, if you find yourself in this sort of situation with another PrC, talk to me and we'll see if we can do anything about it.

The second is the previously discussed rule about spell levels and chameleons. As a complete aside, holy fuck did someone do drugs when they designed trapsmith? That class is a Chameleon or Archivist orgasm in PrC form.

The third deals with the Chameleon's floating feat. This one should be obvious, but I'm putting it there to prevent shenanigans.

---

This campaign is turning deadlier and deadlier, so I'm inclined to go Chameleon with Sylvie. I try and tailor NPCs to the power level of the game, and since this is proving to be quite the lethal campaign? Yeah.

Added a new banned spell to the house rules: Find the Gap. It's basically a remixed wraithstrike.

General note for Cor: The rest of the party leveled up, I'll deal with that for you when you're back from vacation. Don't mess with it until then and after we talk. This doesn't mean anything bad, just wanna keep my shit organized.

Man, every time you say it's nothing bad I bet that's the first reflex everyone gets! Anyway, that's cool. I might catch you around the 29-30th.

I know, right?

Also mental note: Resume leveling characters up at Neveril tonight. Got Sylvie'n'Josa done. Also rework Yuria and post her.

Holding off on leveling Neveril for the moment, I want to talk to Cor about a few things with her first and run down options. Cor, feel free to post any preferences for her development, since I wanted to talk to you about that.

Irony: Sylvie ended up not messing with Ardent Dilettante, but Balyss found it killer useful for some skill pre-req issues. I admit I like it's flavor for her, as Selunites know how to party and feel things. I can totally see her in that.

Adept changes:

Adepts are a catchall for minor casters who do not specialize in any one field or take magic study to higher heights.

Adepts may now choose between intelligence, wisdom and charisma at 1st level. This stat is used as their core casting stat, once chosen it cannot be changed.

At 2nd level and every even level thereafter, the adept gains the following ability:

Advanced Learning (Ex): At 2nd, 4th and every even level thereafter, an adept can add a new spell to his list, representing the result of personal study and experimentation. The spell may come from any list, but it must fit in with the themes of spells already on the adept's list, and of a level no higher than that of the highest-level spell the adept already knows. Once a new spell is selected, it is forever added to that adept's spell list and can be cast just like any other spell on the adept's list.

The DM has final say on if a spell fits into the adept's spell list.

Yuria's posted. A few notes about her.

1. Wall of Smoke is justified by her getting Wall of Fire later on. Get the joke? Eagles Splendor makes sense since they get three stat buffers as it is.

2. Toughness is a placeholder feat, I'm probably going to change it. Right now I have no idea on a PrC or further build with her.

3. She originally had 16 wis, but that doesn't fit her at all so I switched it to charisma for full blonde mode.

Edit: I forgot to do her skills. >_< Editing those in as I look at PrC options.

Also, it's terrible that I glance at her and she can make it into divine oracle next level, and it would be good for her.

>_<

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SuspiciouslySpecificDenial , etc
Neve-wise, sure. My own advancement is likely to be as planned, paragon/paladin, but I'd like to meet the family before it, I guess.

Eb: Remember when you were talking about Eldritch Blast becoming a higher level spell so you couldn't improve SLA boosters to it? Check the CA errata, it refutes that and maintains Eldritch Blast always counts as a 1st level spell.

Well shit. Better get me a blast essence before people start casting lesser globes of invulnerability.

On the flip side you can always get SLA boosters to help it now.

Yeah, maybe at level 18...

What about Quicken? You can get it for your default Eldritch Blast at level 12, and I figure you'd be all over that one.

I think. How does adding blast essences work for warlocks, anyway? Is it permanent or can you change it at will?

Blast essences can be selected at will. I plan on taking the Acid one (since it ignores SR), which should also get me above the block put out by minor globe of invulnerability (maybe the not-minor one, not sure).

As for feats, I'm pretty much packed on them for a while. 9 - Fey Power, 12 - Scribe Scroll, 15 - Darkstalker (if Darkstalker can work as a Scout Bonus feat I'd take it at 8). So be a while before I can splurge on anything SLA related.

I'd allow Darkstalker as a Scout feat, it's entirely reasonable.

[16:14] <@Kotono> Okay, quick and dirty vote then: Yay or nay on that houserule.
[16:14] <@Janson> http://www.soulriders.net/forum/index.php?topic=100656.0
[16:15] <@Janson> I'm for it.
[16:16] <@Janson> Specifically, I'm for this version.
[16:16] <@Janson> Energy Drain never results in lost levels. However, if the fort save made after 24 hours fails, the negative level condition becomes permanent until removed via a Restoration spell or similar.
[16:16] <Whurric> That's fine to me. It's still 'permanent', but fixable.
[16:16] <Orval> Agreed.
[16:16] <Orval> I can totally live with that.
[16:17] <@Kotono> Okay.
[16:17] <Orval> Still debilitating, but at least there's hope
[16:17] <@Kotono> Someone copy/paste this into odds and ends, I'll add the house rule tonight.

Also, are you guys interested in this house rule?

QuoteWhen reduced to below 0 hp, a percentile roll must be made each round to stabilise or lose further hp. The target of this roll is equal to the character's constitution score or lower.

I like it.

It's horribly speciest and ensures future Simmer-type characters are more likely to die! :(

(No, just kidding, I like it. Simmer-types can stay out of the fire if they don't like it)

Quote from: Merc on April 29, 2011, 07:24:55 PM
Simmer-types can stay out of the fire

You are a cruel man.

Well if they don't want to get iced, it just makes sense!

You make baby pyrodryads cry.

Are they crying fiery tears?

Also, I like this rolling system.

Outstanding. We'll adopt them.

Barring Cor posting later with a compelling argument against them, though as I recall he's neutral to favorable on both of these houserules anyway.

I don't really have strong emotions either way, go for whichever you'd like.

Note to self: Add these to houserules officially tonight.

Gestalt and the world: What's gestalt and what isn't.

This came up in PM so I'd like to clarify what my policy on what qualifies to be gestalt. Most things do for the sake of internal consistency; I dislike having just a few heroes having the benefit of gestalt and everyone else is normal. There are exceptions to this and they're noted here.

1. Creatures of 2 intelligence or lower. RAW they're too dumb to take class levels so they're fucked. Sometimes I'll use up some of the unused gestalt for templates, but generally they're not entitled to anything.
2. Summoned monsters, such as by summon monster, an outsider's summoning ability or whatever else. It's not practical to stop and stat up a gestalt summoned monster so they're SOL. Plus adding gestalt to summons fundamentally alters the power of those abilities.
3. Familiars, animal companions, or any other creature class features. Adding gestalt to them over complicates things as well as inflates the value of this class features.

Exceptions to the previous:

1. Creatures of 2 or less intelligence that gain an intelligence of 3 or higher. They don't instantly gain the new levels, but they'll develop them over time. This happens at a speed dictated by their new intelligence score.
2. Planar bindings and the like may bind a gestalt creature if you're familiar with one and bind that one in particular. By default it won't if you're just grabbing a random creature. Do bear in mind that binding and irritating a gestalt creature is twice as deadly as irritating a non gestalt one.

Gray areas:

1. Certain creatures who have full featured races/hit dice may not be gestalt at my discretion. Dragons are the worst offenders here, as well as certain outsiders like solars or arcanaloths. This falls into the nebulous territory of DM discretion and is amplified by the fact that many of these creatures are under CR-ed to begin with. I've been fucking with this behind the scenes and it's a messy issue, so we'll see.

As a random 'don't have school, so I'm bored' project today, I went and tried to do the entire timeline for Cor's thread on that. Only hard date we had was the day of ascension, though Dune used a lot of "next day" and "in X days" references or gave pretty good date estimates that could be used in logs, though there were a couple of "a few days pass" (which I usually assumed to be two days, unless proven otherwise somewhere, just to keep us from going too far back into May). Going backwards/forwards from August 7th, it seems that we started on May 19th, 424 DK and Aaeru has been gone for at least a month in-game. Aaeru should come back all mellow and non-angry!

Also:
[00:06] <Kotono> INcidnetally could you work out the full moons and post them? Yuth was interested since his religion sees them as holy days. I gave him an answer but honestly it was just off the top of my head bullshit.
[00:06] <Merc> I specifically just calculated June 26 as a full moon date, based on Day of Ascension, and extrapolated the May one based on the first calendar I found (2010) that had June 26 as a full moon
[00:07] <Merc> http://moonphases.info/full_moon_calendar_dates.html
[00:07] * Kotono nods.
[00:07] <Merc> has the full moon dates for a number of years, so can just look there for the 2010 dates and 2011 dates if you want to translate those to year 424DK and 425DK

Thanks!

Also accidentally edited your post, sorry. Fixed.

It's been bugging me. I get why a sirine gets the ability to remove int damage done by another sirine, from a plot point. But since the damage is just like any other damage and is in no way different, it makes no sense to me that the int damage removal be restricted like that. Since you wanted me to post about it, Dune, just glance at this whenever?

Short version: Yeah sure, I'll go along with that.

Long version for the bored and the pedantic:

As a tangent I'm tempted to rework Adept some more since it's still pretty terrible, and the spell list has some strange holes.

Quote from: Anastasia on May 10, 2011, 12:56:39 AM
strange holes.

Bwaha.

Quote from: Yuthirin on May 10, 2011, 02:13:17 AM

Quote from: Anastasia on May 10, 2011, 12:56:39 AM
strange holes.

Bwaha.

I try and make at least one bad sex joke or pun every time I post about Yuria. Makes life more interesting.

If you don't like Adept so much, why not make her a sorc or favored soul or something?  >_>

That really is a good point, and it would save a ton of time.

Because variety is the spice of life, and I like tinkering with things.

Yes, but if you had to choose between raspberry-flavored jelly beans and poop-flavored jelly beans, that's really not a good variety.

Got any prcs in mind for her? Maybe even some that add a spell or two every few levels? I remember there was that dragon wyrm mage thing that did it, and Unseen Seer as well, I think, and Beguiler has a similar option. I'm pretty sure you can leave her as a base Adept and just give her a suitable prc with extra spells that way.

I'm thinking of a PrC that adds domain access for just that reason, Cor.

The book Aaeru was given has the following notes:

- Always be thankful to Waukeen. Praising her wealth, the glory she gives and all of that is expected.

- A suitable gift is expected for this sort of affair. The richer the gift the better. Likewise, the fancier your clothing and the richer you appear there, the better. Waukeenites view wealth as a sign of Waukeen's favor.

- Lots of little etiquette tips for this sort of thing. As long as you guys read this book beforehand, you gain a +4 circumstantial bonus to diplomacy and bluff checks while at the meeting.

Okay, Yuria time!

Option 1: Rebuild her as a favored soul.



This is quick and dirty; no spell list, her skills are off and she hasn't selected a level six feat. It's good enough to give you an idea of how she'd look. It's a general upgrade except for skills, taking fighter at level 1 will hurt those. This isn't a huge deal for her, as despite being a rogue she's not much of a skill maven.

2. Rework Adept a little more plus select a good PrC for her.

Self explanatory. Add a few odd omissions to Adepts spell list and go into a good PrC.

Thoughts? Opinions?

Favoured Souls don't get invisibility, which she seemed somewhat set on making her schtick. Adepts might not be the most powerful, but it is gestalt so who cares, and at least they get access to some spells from the cleric and wizard lists. Druid too, I think.

I'd say stick with Adept as well, it works well for her, and you've already been adjusting its spell list and letting her cast out of her charisma.

Favored Soul has the problem Eb mentioned with invisibility and you'd have to replace Survival (not that it probably matters concept-wise for her) as well as knowledge nobility/religion (which -do- matter concept-wise, although it's really odd that favored souls don't get religion but get arcana).

Also, isn't a favored soul's weapon focus for the deity's weapon? So she'd have to worship someone with a scythe (just think its Jergal and Chauntea/Jannath, but not sure)? I actually don't know who she worships, not on her sheet and I don't want to log dive to see if it ever even got mentioned as being one of those two, but given it's also her holy symbol...

I always got the impression she worshipped the Malmuth Empire rather than a deity. Since we're not playing FR, that works.

Oh, that makes sense.

Make her a ninja instead of a rogue for delicious invis~

Quote from: Ebiris on May 13, 2011, 03:19:54 AM
Favoured Souls don't get invisibility, which she seemed somewhat set on making her schtick. Adepts might not be the most powerful, but it is gestalt so who cares, and at least they get access to some spells from the cleric and wizard lists. Druid too, I think.

They get a couple from the druid, but it's spotty.

Quote from: Merc on May 13, 2011, 04:15:33 AMI'd say stick with Adept as well, it works well for her, and you've already been adjusting its spell list and letting her cast out of her charisma.

Favored Soul has the problem Eb mentioned with invisibility and you'd have to replace Survival (not that it probably matters concept-wise for her) as well as knowledge nobility/religion (which -do- matter concept-wise, although it's really odd that favored souls don't get religion but get arcana).

Also, isn't a favored soul's weapon focus for the deity's weapon? So she'd have to worship someone with a scythe (just think its Jergal and Chauntea/Jannath, but not sure)? I actually don't know who she worships, not on her sheet and I don't want to log dive to see if it ever even got mentioned as being one of those two, but given it's also her holy symbol.

Invisibility is a problem, yes. I was toying with her simply saying she forgot how to cast it. Funny enough, though it's not a great excuse. K:R can be fixed by houserule - this is a stupid omission, favored souls have that problem - but the other two are valid concerns. She could take apt learning to make up for it.

She worships the Malmuthian Empire, 'least in theory.  As an adept it doesn't hugely matter. It matters more as a favored soul.

QuoteMake her a ninja instead of a rogue for delicious invis~

(http://i.imgur.com/jsDcI.gif)

(http://i.imgur.com/Lgef1.jpg)

Went with favored soul after all. The main reason was because that the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I built Yuria for one purpose and she's taken on a whole different one. Rather than getting into a situation where she may end up bad or needing an uber PrC to halfway compete, I decided to go the rebuilding route. The following feat is used to bridge the gap.

Malmuthian Spell Training [General]
Prerequisite: Able to cast spontaneously cast 2nd level spells.
Benefit: Your training with new schools of magic have given you a handful of new spells. You add the following spells to your spells known list: 0: Prestidigitation 2: Invisibility 4: Greater Invisibility.

You made her an initiate feat? Heh, nice.

I do this every so often and it's that time again! So I pose a question to all of you; do you have any house rules you'd like to suggest?

I know you've banned all save or dies, but what about allowing them using the pathfinder style rules where they do 10 damage per caster level if the save is failed instead?

Link me to the relevant rules?

There's no specific rules, they just rewrote all the SoD spells. eg.

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/magic/all-spells/f/finger-of-death

Lemme fiddle with it and get back to you in a bit.

Is there any PC interest in these spells? I'm going to use this and revise them sooner or later, but it's a fair bit of work for spells I'm not overwhelmingly likely to use much. If PCs are interested in them I'll do it sooner rather than later, otherwise, I'll put it on the back burner for now.

Not from my side. I like the spells personally, but I'm not sure such direct spells of hurting people would fit my char (let's ignore the Suffering domain, I often do).

Re: epic warlock. I dislike the epic invocations having prerequisites. I'm pretty unlikely to take any of them even if I get that far, with the possible exception of the fell flight one.

Quote from: Ebiris on May 17, 2011, 01:52:33 PM
Re: epic warlock. I dislike the epic invocations having prerequisites. I'm pretty unlikely to take any of them even if I get that far, with the possible exception of the fell flight one.

I'm fine with you not taking any of those, they're purely example grist dug up from the epic insights article.  If we get that far I'd figure you'd do custom stuff anyway.

The prerequisite thing comes from the article's design, as it often builds on previous invocations. Could fiddle with it if you like.

Question for Yuth: Are your wizard spells known up to date after today's mishap?

Everything is now above board.

Outstanding.

Two houserules added regarding Knights from the PHB2: They now have good fortitude saves and shield block is upgraded.

[03:29] <Janson> Anyone know where Skypiercing Cathedral is?
[03:29] <Kotono> K:P, post results in odds and ends.
[03:31] <Aaeru> roll 1d20+4 K:P
[03:31] * Hatbot --> "Aaeru rolls 1d20+4 K:P and gets 18." [1d20=14]

[03:25] <Aaeru> Am I allowed to consume the DRAGON ELIXIR for power?
[03:27] <Kotono> Lemme look at your vow later, Cor.
[03:27] <Kotono> I'm too tired to really parse it right now.

[03:50] <Janson> I wonder who the author of that elven treatise is.
[03:50] * Janson expects it to be a Gaial.
[03:50] <Kotono> IF it's a serious question, post it in odds and ends.

Sure why not.

The Skypiercing Cathedral is an unholy temple in the Abyss, layer 471. This layer, formerly known as Androlynne, is now known as The Eternal Maw, realm of Zquujaj.

The author of the tract is listed simply as a concerned citizen of Pallanth.

I did some board upkeep today, mostly just minor shit. Heads up.

---

There is a +1 con booster in the loot thread right now! For reference a listing of people who have an odd numbered con, and can thus immediately benefit from the boost. This doesn't preclude someone with an even con score from taking it.

Aaeru (15) - I did rule using the potion is a VoP violation.
Sylvie (17) - Sylvie's stat blessed, she's not in any dire need of a boost here.
Neveril(11) - +0 con mod, so she'd find good use for it.
Balyss(15) - Not really a part of Whimsical Sweets as much as an ally, but listed for the sake of completeness.

Who all is interested in it? I didn't list it with a retail price, as it's essentially a unique item. If you guys want to assign a price on it say so; for reference the cost of a tome of con+1 is 27,500 marks.

Orval is interested in it, but only if nobody wants it. It's kind of a big-deal item, so I want to make sure nobody else wants it.

Janson considers it 'nice to have' but doesn't want to take it in case a dex/cha/int/wis booster turns up next since any of them would be preferred for him. Might as well price it the same as the tome.

Yeah, Orval would definitely prefer wis/int boosts as well. Perhaps it should go to Whurric?

I think Whurric is the one in least need of a con boost, honestly. =p

I wouldn't say no to it, really, but I seriously think it's better off going to just about any other character.

Neveril would gladly take it then. She needs con, and if everyone else is doing the 'it's nice but why don't you have it' game, she'll step up.

[22:59] <C2> I do wonder if the Crimson Guard will be getting involved. Is that kind of knowledge reasonably public, or can they mobilize in secret?
[23:00] <C2> Actually getting there is super-easy
[23:00] <Kotono> Make a K:L check?
[23:00] <C2> roll 1d20+4 sure
[23:00] * Hatbot --> "C2 rolls 1d20+4 sure and gets 12." [1d20=8]
[23:01] <Kotono> You'd know various rumors - that the Guard can teleport and use magic. So it's entirely feasible based on scuttlebutt, though the truth of it is anyone's guess. It's known they go to lands far and wide.

Charities-wise, if I were to branch out, the avenues to explore would be some NGO that helps veterans, something similar to a retirement home and just directly supporting the House of Suffering (ie our hospital)? Is there any upkeep the orphanage needs on a monthly basis to stay properly open and not lack in anything? Just exploring the options, here.

Added the resurrection rules to house rules. I also added a few more deities and planes to the modifiers listing.

Updated the closet and added a trophy room post. Sling a post in here if I'm missing anything.

Any suggestions for things for Neve to buy? She only has a bit right now, but that will change in due time.

I'd assume anything boosting bardic powers would be a priority? Given we sometimes get class-specific loot, it might be something to aim for.

I also recall Sylvie going for a few books to have the masterwork tools bonus, and that's another option for Neve, where it comes to Perform.

Quote from: Corwin on June 04, 2011, 04:40:52 PMI'd assume anything boosting bardic powers would be a priority? Given we sometimes get class-specific loot, it might be something to aim for.

That's on the agenda, it's a no duh call for any bard. She's a booster first and foremost.

QuoteI also recall Sylvie going for a few books to have the masterwork tools bonus, and that's another option for Neve, where it comes to Perform.

She'll buy those once she has a few hundred spare marks. Perform doesn't really need the boost since she has a massive racial bonus; I figure she should save up for a few essentials first and pick those up with leftover money.

Cloak of resistance is always a favorite, and it's fairly cheap, too.

Aaeru, Janson, Neve and Sylvie are going to warn Captain Hamilton and stick with him for a while in case he needs to be guarded. We'll also swing by the Crimson Guard to appraise them of this situation, which can happen off screen.

Arachiel will go to search to wreckage for any of Orval's belongings.

If the majority of the group is is going to guard Hamilton, I'd assume Josa and Whurric would join in as well, not unless Arachiel wants Whurric around for whatever it was she wanted to search for amongst the wreckage.

Josa will point out that letting Arachiel go alone is a bad idea in case any danger looms, and recommends at least one person go with him.

If everyone wants to go warn Hamilton, Janson would point out this'll leave their chance of catching a trail for Senaril in Wetwind cold, so he'll volunteer to stay behind and follow up that.

Y'know, this sounds a hell of a lot like his reasoning for bowing out of the curse breaking job in the first place.

It does, doesn't it?  :(

The parallels are stunning, aren't they?

I guess this is the path to Whurric, Neve, and Sylvie all being brutally killed beyond hope of resurrection while Aaeru gets horribly traumatised and Janson twiddles his thumbs in safety.

But realistically there's poor odds of any bad shit going down in Balmuria under the protection of its harsh anti-undead Mythal, whereas there's too much risk of losing the trail completely if we neglect Wetwind. I don't want to leave the girls on their own right now, but I want to give Senaril a clean getaway and chance at murdering us at her leisure even less.

I'll save Neve and Sylvie at least, dammit!

Nah, I'll stick with Arachiel, I did say I would go with her. I won't deny Janson's company or someone else's, but Janson can stick it out with his girlfriend and go double dating with Aaeru if that's what he wants.

Whatever works for you guys. Right now I'm tentatively looking at Whurric+Arachiel and Janson+Aaeru+Neveril+Josa+Sylvie.

So long as at least one PC is following up clues in Wetwind I'm happy, although it might be a good idea for Josa to help Whurric and the ball on that.

Sounds good. So Josa+Whurric+Arachiel and Janson+Aaeru+Neveril+Sylvie.

Agreed.

Also! Orval and Yuria's untimely demises have made one point. From now on, could you note what treasures you keep at home and what you take with you? Just a little tag by the item or a separate category for homebound items will suffice. Thanks!

Good idea.

Added Deadeye to house rules under feats. It's just the normal feat from Dragon Compendium with the errata applied.

Added a new banned spell to houserules: Hunter's Mercy from the Spell Compendium. An autocrit effect isn't first level magic.

Dune, your intense dislike of ToB nonwithstanding, can you just adopt a variant of http://dnd.savannahsoft.eu/feat-2556-shadow-blade.html to the game? Stances or what not aside, it's basically a neat feat that lets you add dex to damage when you use one of six weapons, one of which is unarmed strike and thus very relevant.

Also, a question about a Complete Champion prc, Fist of the Forest. Would the unarmed strike damage increases from that class modify the damage from Strength Devotion (same book)?

Quote from: Corwin on June 09, 2011, 02:43:51 AMAlso, a question about a Complete Champion prc, Fist of the Forest. Would the unarmed strike damage increases from that class modify the damage from Strength Devotion (same book)?

The unarmed damage boost is treated as monk progression. It doesn't stack, they overlap. You use whichever is better.

Fist of the Forest could stand a rewrite, but that's here nor there. I really don't care for how parts of it are written, it could use more clarity.

What do you think about Sovereign Speaker from Faiths of Eberron (p32)? I got to wonder if it's something that could be viable with the Triad.

It's very nice if you want a shit ton of domains, I suppose.  The way it's written wouldn't be as effective with a 3 god Triad, since you have less domains to draw on and there's overlap between them. I don't have any huge problem with the class, though.

Edit: If you're really interested in it let me know later and we'll work something out. It would need some reflavoring plus a bit of tweaking.

New houserules:

Added a note that monks and paladins may multiclass freely. I've ignored that rule for a long time though it's never been codified. I also noted that monks may be any non-chaotic instead of any lawful. This is something I've been observing this game as well. If you really wanna monk it up, feel free to be neutral.

Switching Lucky Dice soulmeld for Spellward Shirt (spell resistance 5)

edit: also putting in an essentia point I usually have in lucky dice in that soulmeld, so spell resistance is actually 9.

As in spell resistance 5 total?

Remind me next init that Josa has motivate dexterity. I forgot in the bustle last time. It was a classical busy DM slipup.

Speaking of stuff, can you rule on Heroism and Invis (and anything similar) and how they interact with your CMB and CMD?

Quote from: Corwin on June 15, 2011, 02:46:33 AM
Speaking of stuff, can you rule on Heroism and Invis (and anything similar) and how they interact with your CMB and CMD?

I will tomorrow.

I'm going to rule for the moment that modifiers or penalties to hit apply to CMB. If that doesn't work I'll change it later.

Did anyone take Yuria's scythe with them on the way in? Feels like a suitable instrument of vengeance, here.

I wanted to but we were hurrying down the stairs after clearing the first guards and I didn't want to waste time going back for it with spell durations ticking down.

I did make sure to kill the Sleeped guards so none could wake up and run away with it to fund their retirement.

No one grabbed it. Barring someone else doing something, it's presumably still sitting there.

Added a new houserule to the general rulings section. Way back in Balmuria 1 I houseruled summon spells to take a standard action instead of 1 round to cast. I'd forgotten about it until now, as I very rarely use summon monster spells on bad guys.  To be honest I'm okay with the change in gestalt, since barring shenanigans, summons are even weaker thanks to almost everything else being gestalt.

Okay, read and digested everything. I see two options.

1. Game over. The exact results of the Senaril battle can be handwaved or played out as you desire. No matter what they are, we move onto something else after this.

2. We continue on. You attempt to defeat Senaril, and assuming all goes well, you continue on. From here hopefully the game gets out of this Senaril induced dark phase.  This may turn into 1 if a TPK ensues.

Vote for which you prefer.

Supplementary answers to various points below, then my own thoughts after that.

Quote<Aaeru> I wouldn't mind it if the solar that came down for a handy reincarnation and to give Archie some spare gold would return and smite her

It's certainly possible you may get some aid, but I'm not going to handwave a victory if we're continuing on with the game. If things are so munged that you need a naked DM Deus Ex Machina to autokill  Senaril then I'd rather just move on.

Quote<Janson> Basically, Balmuria is nihilistic to the core. We try to ignore it and have fun and get along, and then you slam us with this stuff.

Barring Senaril, this has been a decently lighthearted and bright game. Senaril shows all the darker for what she's done; it doesn't mean the entire game world is a nihilistic mess. It means people need to stand up and make a better future, like Whimsical Sweets. Senaril said as much, and said that's why she's attacked you guys. The point is to look that misery, despair and bitter hatred in the eye and say, "Fuck you." By what Senaril said, she as much confessed that you could do a lot of good and change things for the better if you keep going. That doesn't mean the world is nihilistic, it means that there's much to fight for and to make the world a brighter, better place.

Quote<Arachiel> As for a new game, having Senaril hanging over or heads would not ve fun.

I'd like to resolve Senaril one way or another, yes. That's one loose thread that should be trimmed.

QuoteArcane Strike discussion.

I've been toying with nerfing it since the end of Balmuria 1, but I've held off since Aaeru took it. I may nerf it after all this - it's irrelevant right now at least.

Quote<Ebiris> I took it easy with Janson, a simple build (with not exactly fantastic classes) and below average stats, hardly any use of magic items. But it a nice break from the optimisation that characterised Balmuria 1, and he was pretty good at surviving all the stuff we'd faced up till now. I think his replacement will need to be more carefully built, though.

Janson's been fine power-wise. I didn't expect him to die but he got himself into this situation. Honestly I feel horrible about it, since he tried to use his brains and wit to turn the tables on Senaril. I don't really like rewarding PC creativity with a short, brutal demise. Anyway, I'd say if Janson comes back a tad more optimization wouldn't hurt, but the basic chassis is okay. I've been optimizing NPCs a little more since I rebuilt Sylvie, so this wouldn't go amiss. (A lot more in Sylvie's case.)

---

My own thoughts? At first I wanted to just say the hell with it. I was frustrated with the entire thing. Once I let that pass, I realized that the game isn't unsalvageable. This has been a brutal arc, but it is just an arc. The survivors can go on and Senaril's hopefully gone. Once I squared that away with myself, I realized that a lot of the appeal of canning this is to go back to the Balmuria 1 PCs, have the other two make new PCs to join in. It could be a Shar stomp like I mentioned on IRC a week ago or whatever. I admit I'm still attached to those characters. On the other hand I'm attached to these characters too. So after some thought I'm fairly neutral. If I get a clear majority I'll go with that; if it's a tie I'll decide.

If we do end up going back, I don't think I'll continue using gestalt. It's been fun and interesting, but mid epic level gameplay doesn't need the complication. Food for thought if you're thinking about going that way.

Edit: I concede I talked more about Balmuria 1 there than Balmuria 2. I don't meant to imply favoritism by it. Continuing Balmuria 2 is self evident with what will happen and doesn't need that sort of elaboration.

-I don't want a Shar stomp or, really, anything to do with her. She can go troll other potentials for all I care.

-I'm not really interested in playing something else while my current character is hanging in limbo and facing a fate literally worse than death along with pretty much everyone she cares about. If this means fighting it out with what little we have, then that's what I want to do.

-Whimsical Sweets really aren't about making a brighter future, we just do a bunch of random stuff that often tends to be fun. Rather than an affirmation of life, what facing Shar's overpowered agents does is manage to give us massive PTSD. Is there much to fight for? Sure. Does it feel hopeless with Shar being how she is and no one on her level apparently evening out the scales? Yep. (And they don't. No one does. Nothing outside chargen-related situations.)

-Don't have a strong opinion on Arcane Strike. From experience, it needs a nerf if other players are feeling overshadowed by it, and I don't think that really happens so far. I'm with Eb on nova abilities or whatever you call them. It's pretty unreasonable to give them to people who don't have anything holding them back from going all out each time.

-Another thing on the Shar/nihilism/whichever angle. I've been bugging you about having a chance to do something with a more... spiritual? divine? direction. Not change the tone of the game, but really just a chance to have some quest that actually lets me follow Ilmater's wishes or even just travel somewhere on his behalf to see the world more. Shar is apparently opposed by so many, but we haven't had so much as a divine pat on our back for our parts in repeatedly foiling her (even in cases where it would seem we would be watched, like the Marianne and Lyris affair). And even in death, it doesn't seem like our patrons actually care enough to protect our souls or so much as reassure us. Are their games of divinity that entertaining they can't be bothered to take a brief break from them? The only divine influence unrelated to chargen issues in the game is from Shar.  :/

Quote from: Corwin on June 21, 2011, 12:32:22 AM
Shar is apparently opposed by so many, but we haven't had so much as a divine pat on our back for our parts in repeatedly foiling her (even in cases where it would seem we would be watched, like the Marianne and Lyris affair). And even in death, it doesn't seem like our patrons actually care enough to protect our souls or so much as reassure us. Are their games of divinity that entertaining they can't be bothered to take a brief break from them? The only divine influence unrelated to chargen issues in the game is from Shar.  :/

Corwin makes a great point here. If Shar's the Dastardly Dan of the gods, why isn't there a more concerted and obvious front set up against her? The gods should know that we've tangled with Senaril before, and frankly, I would think they should be doing more than just converting a lantern archon into a mortal. The remort of my character was cool and all, and gave the feel of official backing, but that's really it. Our group has a walking seal of approval. No holy avengers, no special abilities, no geas, no prophecy, nothing really helping us out here. Really just a "Go Ye Forth And Conquer. Have A Good Time. We'll Watch."

Maybe I'm wrong and I've missed something, but I'm just not feeling it.

That said, I refuse to rest until Senaril's soul is cast into the furthest unknowable reaches of the Far Plane. If we're going to die to Senaril, I want to die to Senaril, not just handwave it.

As for Gestalt or not, I could really care less. It's been a fun way of gaming, but any gaming is usually fun for me.

As for the Solar, I don't want an autokill on Senaril, but a reset to fully rested, shadows destroyed, and a rez or two tossed around wouldn't be terrible. If we still die to Senaril then, well, yeah, we earned it. I'd really like the chance to put some arrows in her.

All in all, I'm in favor of continuing. Option 2.

QuoteVote for which you prefer.

#2, personally. I dislike seeing something end unfinished, and given I just got out of one game that had that sort of ending... even if I won't take part in this fight, #2 is just my preference.

Quote

Quote<Janson> Basically, Balmuria is nihilistic to the core. We try to ignore it and have fun and get along, and then you slam us with this stuff.

Barring Senaril, this has been a decently lighthearted and bright game. Senaril shows all the darker for what she's done; it doesn't mean the entire game world is a nihilistic mess. It means people need to stand up and make a better future, like Whimsical Sweets. Senaril said as much, and said that's why she's attacked you guys. The point is to look that misery, despair and bitter hatred in the eye and say, "Fuck you." By what Senaril said, she as much confessed that you could do a lot of good and change things for the better if you keep going. That doesn't mean the world is nihilistic, it means that there's much to fight for and to make the world a brighter, better place.

I wouldn't quite say it's nihilistic either... but at the same time, there's that feeling that something is off that keeps it from quite being lighthearted/bright even through it's better arcs.

Specifically, it doesn't quite feel like there are other forces of good really pulling their weight to make the world such a better place. There are forces that should be -dedicated- to doing this.

We're the mercenaries. We get -paid- to do good things. Sure, we pick and choose our jobs so we're helping out, but at the end of the day, we're still getting paid.

We're seeds of goodness? Heck, we'd never probably get involved with Shar's stuff if some job didn't lead us to that or Shar's followers themselves didn't come for us. See those Lunatics? Alicia's flock? The Crimson Guard? Hello? Shar, Senaril, I gotta tell you...you have an overgrown FOREST out there to deal with before you start worrying about seeds.

But okay, forget that. That Senaril would want to get revenge on Whimsical Sweets is still understandable, we -did- foil her plans before and killed her. Dying hurts!

But as Cor put it:
[15:36] <Aaeru> Apparently I'm strong enough they heard of me in two other countries!
[15:36] <Aaeru> But... they're just as strong? And nobodies?

How is it Senaril can gather all these people under the noses of all the organizations that are dedicated to combating Shar, that none of them are known and just nobodies, but still they're a credible enough threat to possibly kill us, and if not that at least whittle heavily at our resources? Shouldn't some of her forces be out there keeping the rest of the good guys occupied so she can indulge in her petty revenge? And if she is able to gather such a force, shouldn't the good guys have heard at least -something- brewing in the background, and be thinking 'Hmm...there must be something important about these dudes, we should do more to help them stay alive...Shar obviously is investing a LOT in seeing them wiped off the face of every map'?

That said, I don't want to get sidelined by these other groups, obviously. I do like that we're the stars, because hey, we really are! But this arc's also just been depressing in how much Senaril can get away with, and meanwhile the forces of good are just kinda sorta ineffective at their jobs, leaving us to pick up their slack. We keep getting into these fights that whittle away at our hope, and yet we're apparently the world's only hope because the rest of the good guys are just plain useless outside of a person here and there, and Shar's forces are able to target 'em freely? Man, the world's just fucked, isn't it?

QuoteMy own thoughts? At first I wanted to just say the hell with it. I was frustrated with the entire thing. Once I let that pass, I realized that the game isn't unsalvageable. This has been a brutal arc, but it is just an arc. The survivors can go on and Senaril's hopefully gone. Once I squared that away with myself, I realized that a lot of the appeal of canning this is to go back to the Balmuria 1 PCs, have the other two make new PCs to join in. It could be a Shar stomp like I mentioned on IRC a week ago or whatever. I admit I'm still attached to those characters. On the other hand I'm attached to these characters too. So after some thought I'm fairly neutral. If I get a clear majority I'll go with that; if it's a tie I'll decide.

Even with the complaints above, even with the grindy fights here and there (and I like combat, just like a bit more breathing room between tough fights!)... I've been having a lot of fun in Balmuria, and I've grown attached, but only to my piece of history. I obviously have no attachment to Balmuria 1, I've just never really read up on it outside of a bit here and there, and it's just a bit overwhelming to boot.

That piece of history is just huge, it's why I never even really considered joining during previous recruitment drives for balmuria 1, and I'd feel like a third wheel since instead of getting it in manageable chunks like in Balmuria 2, it'd probably get more crammed in. Going to that epic level gameplay and that vast history really makes me hesitate and I can't muster much interest in that, although at least Yuth would be in the same boat with me, so I'd have someone to commiserate with.

Quick post before work.

Voting for 2. By hook or by crook, lets resolve this.

As for my comment about nihilism, Yuth and Merc expanded helpfully on this probably better than I could, but I'll just add that the revelations from the end of Balmuria 1, that the whole setting is the cast-off of a cthulhu-esque elder god that every other god is terrified of, who plans to destroy the setting with Shar as his agent, has always loomed in the background. I honestly do my best to pretend it never happened and go on pretending things are meaningful, but every time Shar comes up it gets driven home again.

If we do go with a new game? I'd rather not drag out old characters - it's totally unfair to Yuth and Merc, and I really don't feel like getting back into epic play. I just want to play in something where it feels like people matter more than the (everythingdies) agendas of ineffable elder gods.

Quote from: Ebiris on June 21, 2011, 03:30:13 AMI'll just add that the revelations from the end of Balmuria 1, that the whole setting is the cast-off of a cthulhu-esque elder god that every other god is terrified of, who plans to destroy the setting with Shar as his agent, has always loomed in the background.

...that is pretty depressing, yes. Wow, that's some revelation. >_>;;

QuoteI'll just add that the revelations from the end of Balmuria 1, that the whole setting is the cast-off of a cthulhu-esque elder god that every other god is terrified of, who plans to destroy the setting with Shar as his agent, has always loomed in the background.

I don't want to get deeply into this, but the point of introducing that wasn't to depress you. It was to set up the potential for you to do something about it. I figure Shar and maybe even Ao would be awesome end bosses if you ever make it that far. Alicia, Seira and the other newly risen powers are a direct attempt to reduce and counter the power of Entropy; it's not like everyone's going quietly into the good night. I've had going back to the power level of Balmuria 1 as an earmarked possibility, and that leaves a plot to run with if we do. I figure, what's a better plot after putting up with Shar than doing something about her on a level that matters to her? I don't want the PC reply to be one of despair, but instead for it to be another challenge to be overcome.  In other words, ROW ROW FIGHT DA POWAH.

All that doesn't directly map to Balmuria 2, but I do feel obligated to explain where I'm coming from with that revelation. It doesn't really justify Senaril and the horrible kill count she's racked up in Balmuria 2 except in a meta sense, and that's not really relevant to the problems here.

Anyway, in regards to today, I'm just gonna post this:

<Yuthirin> I know you just got back, and you have Looming, but you were obviously conflicted about soemthing today with Balmuria. If you want to talk about it, I'm all ears.
> Lemme eat dinner first.
<Yuthirin> Sure.
> I woke up in a bad mood and I knew it wasn't the sort of mood I needed to be in for this. I wasn't going to risk losing my cool because I'm stressed out about my job situation in real life, so.
<Yuthirin> Oh
<Yuthirin> I kind of thought you were mad at us, and I think the others did too
> A little bit, but not seriously, no.
> I'm under a lot of stress but it's not online related.
<Yuthirin> Well yes, I recall not so fondly the time that my players all turned around and told me, quite unceremoniously, that I needed to stop doing what I was doing, because I was really the only one having fun.
<Yuthirin> I was pretty pissed off for a few weeks.
<Yuthirin> But!
<Yuthirin> That's me
> Nah, it's not that. I wouldn't ask for feedback if I didn't want to hear it.
<Yuthirin> Fair enough
> Mind if I post this? I was going to type up something along these lines and post in odds and ends anyway.
<Yuthirin> Yep. Go nuts.
<Yuthirin> I only messaged you in here because the nature is semi private, and you have a game going on.

I still think it would be a really cool thing to redeem Shar, turn her around, and sic her on her former master.

Yeah, the fighting of entropy/Shar/Ao can work for high level deific play, and I was willing to take it on those terms "Oh, this is our big plot, same as the gnome God-King was our big plot in regular play", but once it becomes part of canon for low level play (since obviously Alicia and Seira haven't done anything about it in the time between games) it casts an unpleasant pall over the world we perform our comically heroic hijinks in.

It's also a difference in tone. The Crimson Guard in Balmuria were the destined heroes of prophecy - they were badass, they handled the big stuff, and threw themselves into deep shit over and over with the full backing of their city and their Gods. Whimsical Sweets are a merry band of mercenaries who cause trouble as much as fix it, are generally regular people, and are named after a sweet shop. That last part just makes it feel like senseless bullying for evil dark world ending goddesses to spare us their personal attention, because they should be wholly above dealing with such pissants as us. By this level in Balmuria 1 we were fighting for the fate of the world, retrieving artifacts of legend, all that stuff. Whimsical Sweets go on quests to get rare herbs to make beer with.

Quote from: Ebiris on June 22, 2011, 03:27:32 AMYeah, the fighting of entropy/Shar/Ao can work for high level deific play, and I was willing to take it on those terms "Oh, this is our big plot, same as the gnome God-King was our big plot in regular play", but once it becomes part of canon for low level play (since obviously Alicia and Seira haven't done anything about it in the time between games) it casts an unpleasant pall over the world we perform our comically heroic hijinks in.

It's also a difference in tone. The Crimson Guard in Balmuria were the destined heroes of prophecy - they were badass, they handled the big stuff, and threw themselves into deep shit over and over with the full backing of their city and their Gods. Whimsical Sweets are a merry band of mercenaries who cause trouble as much as fix it, are generally regular people, and are named after a sweet shop. That last part just makes it feel like senseless bullying for evil dark world ending goddesses to spare us their personal attention, because they should be wholly above dealing with such pissants as us. By this level in Balmuria 1 we were fighting for the fate of the world, retrieving artifacts of legend, all that stuff. Whimsical Sweets go on quests to get rare herbs to make beer with.

To the former, it's certain Alicia and Seira and all the others are fighting her. It just hasn't shown on screen, and just 'cause you guys are fighting Hell doesn't mean a few devils can't sneak in and raise some trouble up. It's just not really something you see much - had Andrea survived the first Senaril mess this would have come up. Plus, taking down a Greater Power and possibly an Overgod isn't the task of 20, 200 or even maybe 2,000 years.  Defeating Shar is a grand quest on the scale of history itself, not something you do in a single quest. Are they opposing her and working against her? Naturally. If Shar was easy to wax, Selune would've managed it a long time ago. If I ever get a chance to DM that type story, it would be on that scale. It's a battle of immortals and powers, of long maneuvering and epic clashes.

No argument with the latter half of that post. It's part of why I'm not happy with how this has turned out. If you guys kicked her ass and dealt with her, it was cool and inched you into some more heroic options. It hasn't worked out that way at all. So hey, I have Senaril say some stuff to make everything make more sense and make it more personal. Give you some possible hooks out of it, you know? Shar is a bitch, this is established again and you could even devote yourselves to smacking her shit in if you wanted. Anyway yeah, the entire thing has had some problems and you guys have managed to drop like flies so it's not working.

QuoteI still think it would be a really cool thing to redeem Shar, turn her around, and sic her on her former master.

Hey, if you ever get that far, go for it. I like your attitude there, even if it's one hell of a tall order.

I want to support Eb 100%. Here are the key points, again:

-The Crimson Guard were heroes with all the backing and power both real and political. Us, we are seen as a cool bunch of dudes. A nonevil Blackwater, say. When I so much as wonder if I might know if the Crimson Guard is planning to get involved in a war and might need/want our help with things (say keeping things quiet on the local front), I get smacked down for being an outsider. It feels like you want to have it both ways. To the city and its people, we are (powerful) nobodies, but the villains of the universe zero in on us just the same as if we were world leaders.

-Alicia and Seira really haven't done anything. Oh, I'm sure they're fighting and all, but let's be frank. If Shar has time to piss off the beer plant-gathering sweets shop, I'm sure either of the benign powers could've had time for plots and counter-plots of their own. You're saying the Good Guys are fighting on the macro level. Okay... but it obviously doesn't preclude Shar from delving into the micro level in parallel to that, and the absence of anything of the sort on the other side is most glaring.

-Why did Andrea have to survive for something to come up? If Seira and Alicia were watching Marianne and Lyris, I'm sure they could've just as well talked to her remaining friends. Well, sent someone over to talk. Left a note. Whatever. Could've been any of the other deities, either.

-To dip into B1-specficic stuff for a sec, no one really tackled the God-King despite specific intentions to empower our strongest mortal allies and entrusting them with that explicit task. Considering that B2 wasn't going to focus on that and that the added benefit of success there literally means limiting Shar's influence on this world, why the delay? It only makes sense if you consider them incompetent off screen and too occupied with the games of divinity (ie fighting Shar on the macro level). Could've shown us that they were actually doing something, and it's the most 'micro' they can make it.

-The beer-making plant quest sounded so awesome. Do you really think we can go on it now? Could we go on it and have fun even had we survived Senaril intact (after the losses of Yuria and Orval)? It just clashes so horribly. Aaeru would want to curl away somewhere and cry for a few months, not go look for beer in the desert. That's what Shar does to the game.

-I won't even comment on redeeming Shar.

I like chatting with people, learning about them, having them get to know me better in turn. It came as a surprise, actually, when I learned that I'm probably in the minority with regard to that. Sure, it hasn't always been a hit (the home visit was very much a miss, I think, for some reason) but overall it's been very fun. Whether it's while helping a woman kick her cheating husband out or when chatting with the captain or more personal interactions with others in our group.

I enjoy doing the lighter stuff. With us being just random adventurers, there are strange opportunities that the true defenders of the city never really get. Putting on shows, hunting for strange ingredients... I still have to shake my head at the beer quest. I've always expected that as soon as it is feasible (ie we get plane shift or something along those lines) that another quest to go recruit Simmer all over again would open.

I liked doing stuff that appealed to my code from time to time. Going after the werewolf and bringing him back alive to be cured, going on a rescue mission to Hell, standing up to a high-ranked cleric of Helm and actually having him listen to me. I really liked doing good things for others, and not out of the necessity of self defense.

Also, since we're pretty much ordinary people it was a nice chance to have a family, whether it's Aaeru and Neve or Janson with Sylvie and her son and mother and their house of maids and tutors. It's a really nice touch, I think, when you can get that. You're not 100% about work and serving your country, and you're not a retired innkeep/magic shop owner. It's somewhere in between. Again, that's pretty nice, and I don't see it happen much in games beyond a brief, momentary focus.

Replacing Mirror Image with Alter Self at lvl8.

Level up notes.

Josa - Not much. He got a major aura and went with motivate care. He also got a few more 4th level spells and that's it. Not a huge level for him. He added his +1 stat bonus to charisma.

Sylvie - Nothing huge here. She got the chameleon floating feat, I put it in Ability Focus(Stunning Fist) for the moment.

Neveril: > roll 1d6 Neveril
* Hatbot --> "Kokokokokoko rolls 1d6 Neveril and gets 6." [1d6=6]
> Corwin cheers in his sleep.

+2 charisma from Sirene Paragon is nice and she gets evasion and an open feat with martial rogue 2. I'm thinking about moving Weapon Finesse there - or ditching it altogether - and filling that 3rd level feat with a more useful ability. Any suggestions? I was looking at obtain familiar, though it would strictly be a Seirat style familiar for her. Other suggestions welcome.

I'll do Balyss later.

New sheet audit for Eb's new girl. You said it's about done besides for gear, so.

Alignment should be Neutral Exalted, not Exalted Neutral.

How do you have AC 20? I see +2 dex and +2 armor. Oh I see, glamered chain mail+3. Make sure to adjust your armor value off of +2.

Everything else looks good.

Corrected AC and alignment. Will do more item trawling tonight.

Quote from: Ebiris on June 24, 2011, 03:27:24 AM
Corrected AC and alignment. Will do more item trawling tonight.

Sure thing. You have the level 8 starting GP, I presume?

That's what I've assumed.

Quote from: Ebiris on June 24, 2011, 03:29:53 AM
That's what I've assumed.

No no, I mean do you have the value?

Dune, do you think you could move http://www.soulriders.net/forum/index.php?topic=101114.msg1020136#msg1020136 to the House Rules under a separate 'Combat' spoiler?

On the Neve feat front, smarter people than myself have listed Snowflake Wardance from Frostburn p50. It's a general feat, but like you said, you can move Weapon Finesse to MR2 and SW can go for the lvl3 feat slot (its prereqs are bardic music and perform/dance 6 ranks, which fits her lvl3). Seems to be a rage-lite, and would give her +13 to attack with the shortsword instead of the current +9 for like 20 rounds. Alternately, Song of the Heart (Eberron Campaign Setting p63) has similar prereqs and boosts the bonuses from bardic music by +1. A third feat option of Extra Music (for +4 more uses, also from Eberron Campaign Setting) would have been nice, but I think between Neve and Eb's new char there's plenty to go around? Also, in the last series of battles of attrition she had just enough bardic music uses, so she's probably good here.

Also, any thoughts on Healing Hymn from Complete Champion p47? It would apparently wreck Suggestion as that relies on Fascinate, but I don't really see that fit her much (part of that is that it inevitably leads to NPCs questioning NPCs during interrogations). And if we start traveling to other planes (such as to get Simmer or just to travel/do odds jobs), the planar handbook's bard ACFs (p29) might work well in replacing Suggestion with a useful ability. Nice chance to diverge from Eb's char, too.

Other notes... can you please list spells from non-SRD sources like Eb does [ie Improvisation (p 121 SpC)] on Neve's sheet? I know where my spells come from and what they do, but I would actually need to look up anything of hers when running her in combat, and it would save me a ton of time. Also, spell-wise, Inspirational Boost (Spell Compendium p123) nicely boosts Inspire Courage by 1, which Neve trails behind with.

Quote from: Anastasia on June 24, 2011, 03:30:14 AM
No no, I mean do you have the value?

Dungeon Master's Guide p136 in the pdf. Lvl8 starting gold is 27k.

Alternately, you may consult http://www.enworld.org/forum/d-d-legacy-discussion/8523-starting-gold-6th-level.html
Seems okay.

Cor has it right as starting gp goes.

Swapped Toughness for Improved Critical (Longbow)

Quote from: Corwin on June 24, 2011, 07:05:36 AM
Dune, do you think you could move http://www.soulriders.net/forum/index.php?topic=101114.msg1020136#msg1020136 to the House Rules under a separate 'Combat' spoiler?

Done.

QuoteOn the Neve feat front, smarter people than myself have listed Snowflake Wardance from Frostburn p50. It's a general feat, but like you said, you can move Weapon Finesse to MR2 and SW can go for the lvl3 feat slot (its prereqs are bardic music and perform/dance 6 ranks, which fits her lvl3). Seems to be a rage-lite, and would give her +13 to attack with the shortsword instead of the current +9 for like 20 rounds. Alternately, Song of the Heart (Eberron Campaign Setting p63) has similar prereqs and boosts the bonuses from bardic music by +1. A third feat option of Extra Music (for +4 more uses, also from Eberron Campaign Setting) would have been nice, but I think between Neve and Eb's new char there's plenty to go around? Also, in the last series of battles of attrition she had just enough bardic music uses, so she's probably good here.

Extra Music isn't needed, this will resolve itself once she takes a few more bard levels.  Song of the Heart is very solid, as is Snowflake Wardance. I'd lean towards the former for her, as Neve shouldn't be getting into melee much.

QuoteAlso, any thoughts on Healing Hymn from Complete Champion p47? It would apparently wreck Suggestion as that relies on Fascinate, but I don't really see that fit her much (part of that is that it inevitably leads to NPCs questioning NPCs during interrogations). And if we start traveling to other planes (such as to get Simmer or just to travel/do odds jobs), the planar handbook's bard ACFs (p29) might work well in replacing Suggestion with a useful ability. Nice chance to diverge from Eb's char, too.

What exactly do abilities do? Gimme the gist of them.

QuoteOther notes... can you please list spells from non-SRD sources like Eb does [ie Improvisation (p 121 SpC)] on Neve's sheet? I know where my spells come from and what they do, but I would actually need to look up anything of hers when running her in combat, and it would save me a ton of time. Also, spell-wise, Inspirational Boost (Spell Compendium p123) nicely boosts Inspire Courage by 1, which Neve trails behind with.

I'll do that next time I'm under the hood with her, sure.

Sure thing. Essentially, Healing Hymn replaces Fascinate and gives you a Bardic Music usage that gives a +1 sacred bonus per point of your Perform rank to any healing spell being cast. That really supercharges any healing spells (but only spells, not wands and the like). It also lets you and your allies recover twice your level instead of just once if you use it before going to bed, again via a use of Bardic Music. I personally think it's cooler than rolling that wand of CLWs ten times.

Of course, no Fascinate means no Suggestion and no Mass Suggestion. Therefore, there are several ACFs for them as well. For example, the aforementioned Planar ACF that replaces Suggestion allows the bard to redirect an inter-planar portal to another portal the bard had been through within the last month. That could be handy, and there could be other ACFs, too.

The martial aspect is really just a backup, but with a tantalizing Echoblade right there I figured she should have a way to actually hit with it if the situation is so dire she has to defend herself. The Song feat can always replace Dodge if it's key to get it now. Her AC can easily be decent with armor, and she'll probably have enough cash for one now. Thoughts?

If my familiar takes the VoP to fit mine, are the benefits calculated based off original creature HD or off mine like with all effects?

Aerie are essentially ported from this, right? http://hastur.net/wiki/Aerie_%28D%26D_creatures%29

They have two writeups for SLAs:

Spell-Like Abilities
Am aerie can use the following spell-like abilities at will: dancing lights, detect good, detect evil, detect magic, electric jolt, and faerie fire. A aerie can use detect thoughts (DC 12 + Cha bonus), glitterdust (DC 12 + Cha bonus), and dispel magic, once per day each. It uses these spell-like abilities as a level 3 sorcerer.

And:
Lesser Aerie Powers (Sp): A aerie can use each of the following spell-like abilities once per day per race level: dancing lights, detect chaos, detect good, detect evil, detect law, detect magic, electric jolt, faerie fire, and invisibility (self only). Its caster level for all spell-like abilities is equal to its race level. At level 3, the aerie can use these powers at will.
Major Aerie Powers (Sp): Beginning at 2nd level, a aerie can use detect thoughts (DC 12 + Cha bonus), glitterdust (DC 12 + Cha bonus), and dispel magic, once per day each.

One has invis/self only, the other doesn't, and neither does the version on the forum under Halls. Was cutting it out a design decision, or due to the above inconsistency? I wanted to be certain before applying final touches.

Quote from: Corwin on June 24, 2011, 05:26:31 PM
Sure thing. Essentially, Healing Hymn replaces Fascinate and gives you a Bardic Music usage that gives a +1 sacred bonus per point of your Perform rank to any healing spell being cast. That really supercharges any healing spells (but only spells, not wands and the like). It also lets you and your allies recover twice your level instead of just once if you use it before going to bed, again via a use of Bardic Music. I personally think it's cooler than rolling that wand of CLWs ten times.

That's fine, Andrea used it.

QuoteOf course, no Fascinate means no Suggestion and no Mass Suggestion. Therefore, there are several ACFs for them as well. For example, the aforementioned Planar ACF that replaces Suggestion allows the bard to redirect an inter-planar portal to another portal the bard had been through within the last month. That could be handy, and there could be other ACFs, too.

By all means, look at 'em and get your cards in order.

QuoteThe martial aspect is really just a backup, but with a tantalizing Echoblade right there I figured she should have a way to actually hit with it if the situation is so dire she has to defend herself. The Song feat can always replace Dodge if it's key to get it now. Her AC can easily be decent with armor, and she'll probably have enough cash for one now. Thoughts?

The Crystal Echoblade is tempting, no two ways about it. I think the real question is if she's worth risking on the front lines or should be entirely defense oriented.

[/quote]

-Neve's defense kinda sucks at present and can only be fixed with gear, so she's defense-oriented only in the sense that she stays back and hopes no one appears behind the party like Senaril did in the last fight. Having a reliable contingency would be a nice idea, I think. It's not like she has to go and stab things if she does have one. But if something forces her hand, she actually has one to play.

-She doesn't qualify for Suggestion yet so it's a non-issue for the time being. Healing Hymn would be very useful from the onset, though!

Quote from: Corwin on June 24, 2011, 05:52:39 PMIf my familiar takes the VoP to fit mine, are the benefits calculated based off original creature HD or off mine like with all effects?

RAW it would use your hit dice to determine it's effects. It's also not likely unless it gets to 3 HD, as it has only one feat and VoP has a prerequisite.  The two other feats are bonus feats and can't be retrained.

I have no idea how it would look balance-wise, but it strikes my DM senses as cheese.

QuoteAerie are essentially ported from this, right? http://hastur.net/wiki/Aerie_%28D%26D_creatures%29

They have two writeups for SLAs: (Snip)

One has invis/self only, the other doesn't, and neither does the version on the forum under Halls. Was cutting it out a design decision, or due to the above inconsistency? I wanted to be certain before applying final touches.

The Halls of the Vanquished version takes priority. What you're quoting has to do with a a savage progression for an Aerie, which isn't relevant to this.

Quote from: Corwin on June 24, 2011, 07:35:14 PM
-Neve's defense kinda sucks at present and can only be fixed with gear, so she's defense-oriented only in the sense that she stays back and hopes no one appears behind the party like Senaril did in the last fight. Having a reliable contingency would be a nice idea, I think. It's not like she has to go and stab things if she does have one. But if something forces her hand, she actually has one to play.

True. On the other hand the Echoblade costs money, money that could be used in other ways. My opinion wavers some depending on how much she ends up getting from loot division.

Quote-She doesn't qualify for Suggestion yet so it's a non-issue for the time being. Healing Hymn would be very useful from the onset, though!

Oh yes, it's a good ACF.

Re: Neve. I'm leaning towards Song of the Heart, but if you really want snowflake wardance I'll go along with that too. Lemme know which you prefer.

Yuria returns from the Well of Souls. Yay!

Lyris and Marianne have been posted. If you aren't aware, their racial powers are callbacks to Balmuria 1. Blame Alicia'n'Seira.

Sheet change summary for Whurric for level-up & reincarnation:
-Lose all dwarf racials (primary change: lose 2 con, gain 2 cha, lose darkvision)
-Gain some human racials (speed went up, gain bonus feat, but assuming not the extra skill points)

-Picked up Streetfighter from Barbarian 7 (Damage Reduction ACF from cityscape web (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20070228a))
-Gain 1 essentia from Incarnate 8, and can use IR 2/day now.

-Saves for barbarian/incarnate leveling go up by Fort+1, Will+1 (fort also went down 1 from drop in Con though). Net result: Will+1.
-Picked Toughness as human bonus feat, so HP didn't go down from con drop.
-Putting lv 8 ability point into Con for Con 17.

-Trading Combat Reflexes feat (might as well get something else, I've made zero AoOs, really) for Skill Focus [Intimidate] (Because Hatbot is just a hatebot).
-Switched around some of my 'default' soulmelds.

Didn't get any loot besides glass statue, so no changes to wealth and no reason to buy anything just yet either.

Quote from: Anastasia on June 24, 2011, 11:31:54 PM
Re: Neve. I'm leaning towards Song of the Heart, but if you really want snowflake wardance I'll go along with that too. Lemme know which you prefer.

Pick what you like. My reasoning for both was what it was, along with an attempt to take Neve in a sufficiently different direction from V-chan. What I really care about, anyway, is her not being forgotten (literally forgotten, in group scenes, how everyone gathers except her) and... doing stuff. Talking. Whichever. She started opinionated and proud and quickly went really passive and invisible.

I would like to ask that Neve and I pick a day and disguise ourselves while going out in Balmuria and blow all her castings on Heroism on one single task. Gather Information: Aaeru.

My check is +19, taking 10 it's 29, with Heroism it becomes 31. If Neve aids successfully, 33.

I'd want to trade in my Arcane Strike for something like http://dnd.savannahsoft.eu/feat-2556-shadow-blade.html or a melee Deadeye if this is possible. Did you have time to consider it, Dune? I asked before but it presumably got lost in the Senaril stuff.

Quote from: Corwin on June 25, 2011, 04:47:27 AM

Quote from: Anastasia on June 24, 2011, 11:31:54 PM
Re: Neve. I'm leaning towards Song of the Heart, but if you really want snowflake wardance I'll go along with that too. Lemme know which you prefer.

Pick what you like. My reasoning for both was what it was, along with an attempt to take Neve in a sufficiently different direction from V-chan. What I really care about, anyway, is her not being forgotten (literally forgotten, in group scenes, how everyone gathers except her) and... doing stuff. Talking. Whichever. She started opinionated and proud and quickly went really passive and invisible.

Okay, went with Song of the Heart. Will be picking up some gear shortly.

Quote from: Anastasia on June 25, 2011, 01:26:50 PM
Okay, went with Song of the Heart. Will be picking up some gear shortly.

Can't go wrong with mithral breastplate, right?

Quote from: Corwin on June 25, 2011, 04:55:57 AMI would like to ask that Neve and I pick a day and disguise ourselves while going out in Balmuria and blow all her castings on Heroism on one single task. Gather Information: Aaeru.

My check is +19, taking 10 it's 29, with Heroism it becomes 31. If Neve aids successfully, 33.

> roll 1d20+4 Neveril aids
* Hatbot --> "Ko-Canadaisalie rolls 1d20+4 Neveril aids and gets 11." [1d20=7]

1. Aaeru is a crazy monk. She lives in the wilds and runs around using magic to clean herself.

2. I heard of that Aaeru! I heard she wrestled a bear down and won! Better wrestler than a bear! I hear she works for a candy shop or something, too.

3. Aaeru? Oh, I remember that name. She helped bring in a Sharran this past spring.  I saw him get hanged.

4. Oh, are you looking for Whimsical Sweets? She's a member. Nice girl.

5. If you're looking for her, go down to the House of Suffering. She serves Ilmater.

6. You know, you look a lot like her. Are you her sister? What? You have the same facial structure as she does.

7. Yeah, she's a bare-handed fighting master and a sorcerer too. She hangs out with a strange crowd at a candy shop.

Arcane Strike revised and added to house rules. Read as: nerfed.

So unless there's a mixup in my understanding of the rules, if you avoid an AoO (such as by being at a distance/having reach/being invisible) you can use any combat maneuver with impunity.

But should there be AoOs for them to begin with? I don't see what it brings to the table, honestly. Wouldn't it be more interesting if everyone could use combat maneuvers, and the extra feats just opened up bonuses for the specific maneuver? Or, maybe, an extra use of it per round for a second followup feat? They might be streamlined right now, but hardly anyone uses them, and I think it's a shame. They can really spice up combat over the usual 'I hit him with my sword' stuff. Thoughts, guys?

The problem is that they're generally better than just attacking normally. If you can disarm/trip/immobilise someone easily then it's going to be your first option unless you're really confident of a one hit kill - generally people who take those feats do build around spamming their one favoured combat trick, because it's better. I don't see any advantage to making them even harder to defend against.

If someone takes the time to set up a combat maneuver by accepting an AoO for movement, or getting invisible, or using a reach weapon, it limits their use to against stuff you're at a disadvantage against without levelling the playing field. That makes it exciting - disarming the two-handed barbarian rape machine, tripping the AC tank so everyone can gang up on him while he's down, that sort of thing. It's better than just opening up by disarming everyone you ever fight who wields a weapon because holy shit why wouldn't you?

I actually figured it would work out because CMD has all the bling people tend to carry counted in. All the bonuses for dodge, deflection, etc. For me, grapple is better than normal attack, but I also have the feat that boosts it and the enlarge person spell obviously helps as well. Without that, I'm better off attacking, I think. [My attack is +13, my grapple CMB is +15; my ac is 27, my grapple CMD is 34. Without my grapple feat, it becomes: attack at +13, grapple CMB at +11; ac at 27, grapple CMD at 30]

I guess my character could be skewed? In any case if this doesn't sound like a good idea, I'll drop it. I just had lots of fun trying to bullrush and disarm people so I wanted to bring it up.

Dune isn't ready on the feat front, so I'm going to swap out Arcane Strike for Spell Rehearsal.

While I'm at it, can I drop Critical Strike in favor of Benign Transposition? I never ended up using it.

Sure, changes go without incident.

Pyxis looks fine, but could you change the name if possible? It's the name of a system at work and it's really fucking with my head.

I dub thee Auriga!

Works for me.

Idle question: Looking at any particular PrCs, Eb?

Quote from: Corwin on June 25, 2011, 02:33:06 PMI guess my character could be skewed? In any case if this doesn't sound like a good idea, I'll drop it. I just had lots of fun trying to bullrush and disarm people so I wanted to bring it up.

I agree with Eb by and large here, but I think you also hit a point dead on. It's a lot of fun to have more options in battle. Perhaps a better house rule would be that eating an AoO on bullrush, grapple or other things doesn't stop the action if it succeeds?

That houserule I can get behind.

As far as PrCs go, the only ones I've even considered are Contemplative and Divine Disciple, since both of those would give me a domain. Since I like turn undead it's a bit of a tradeoff, so I'm not sold completely on either.

Also I was wrong about keeping Weapon Focus to get Deity's Favour. You lose weapon focus to get it in the first place, and then lose weapon spec to bestow it on multiple targets. Updated the sheet to reflect that.

Quote from: Ebiris on June 26, 2011, 07:10:48 AM
That houserule I can get behind.

As far as PrCs go, the only ones I've even considered are Contemplative and Divine Disciple, since both of those would give me a domain. Since I like turn undead it's a bit of a tradeoff, so I'm not sold completely on either.

Also I was wrong about keeping Weapon Focus to get Deity's Favour. You lose weapon focus to get it in the first place, and then lose weapon spec to bestow it on multiple targets. Updated the sheet to reflect that.

What do the rest of you think of that houserule?

As far as those PrCs goes, you can just dip Contemplative 1 to get a domain and divine health. Losing a level of turning is a fair trade there unless you're focusing on it. Divine Disciple strikes me as a full 5 level investment if you go that way, since you don't get the domain until level 4. At that point you may as well finish the class and get the outsider type.

---

I added a changelog to the houserules, so you can easily keep track of various changes. Does this help you guys?

Quote from: Anastasia on June 26, 2011, 01:52:10 PM
I added a changelog to the houserules, so you can easily keep track of various changes. Does this help you guys?

Yes.

Yeah, a lot of the time I see the new post icon by the houserules but have no idea what's changed.

Fantastic, I'll keep up on it.

Yay!

Question to all PCs:

What's on your agenda now? I know each of you have things you'd like to do, summon or look into. List your things here. Eb, I know you're new so introducing you goes without saying. If you have any other immediate goals say so. If you guys wanna do a funeral or something for Janson, speak up. Up to you guys if you wanna RP something like that.

NPC agendas here noted for reference and inspiration.

Josa

1. Josa would like to talk to Whurric at some point, as well as Aaeru and Arachiel.
2. Refill the supply closet, manage finances.

Neveril

1. Make a small offering to Selune.
2. Spend some time getting to know Whimsical Sweets better.
3. Purchase equipment. I'll do this tonight.

Balyss

1. Balyss needs to talk to Whimsical Sweets, though this isn't a priority. She intends to do it later, after you've had some time to heal up from your ordeal's emotional scars.
2. Throw one hell of a party that turns into a dusk-till-dawn bender.
3. Get the best damned booze for said bender.

Marianne

1. Talk to Aaeru some more.
2. Talk to the rest of the group she's found herself with.
3. Clean up some unfinished business. She might want some help with it.

Lyris

1. Talk shop about skirmish/scout stuff with Janson. ...oh wait. Uguu.
2. Train with Arachiel - some coordination with ranged assaults is a good idea.

Yuria

1. Like, get some money since this bitch be broooooke.
2. Find a place to live since it's aaawwwkwaaaard in Janson's old mansion.
3. Spend some time with Whurric.

Whurric will be happy to talk to Josa and to spend time with Yuria!

He would also like at some point to go visit Janson's village and let Vanessa know what happened to Janson and that the scroll was used, as well as letting Janson's family know both that and of Sylvie's quest, since he's aware that Janson has some family still alive, even if he doesn't really know them. He'd probably bring it up whenever he talks to Josa, though he's not particularly in a hurry to leave either.

There's also a bit of curiosity to seek out those escaped goblins, and seeing if they made it out to Balmuria, and finding out what they're doing with themselves. He'd probably ask Aaeru for help with gathering that sort of information. Speaking of, he still wants to meet those orphans in-game!

Aaeru would think it's awkward to have a funeral for Janson without Sylvie or, in fact, while Sylvie is going to bring him back. If she returns without him, they can have a proper service at that time.

I don't actually want to make a big deal out of summoning my new familiar, especially since it would be me talking to myself a lot.

Assuming Josa doesn't have anything urgent (a reply from Simmer asking for a rescue right now, something else that is a pressing matter) Aaeru would want to go for the weekly-ish book reading, possibly with Neve as before? Afterwards, she would want to talk to Croger, and it might be a good chance to meet IC the rest of the people you told me I knew at the temple, even if it's just to exchange a few words.

With regard to Marianne, I'll be happy to continue our chat. I actually considered seeking her and Lyris out, but as this is her initiative, it's up to her when she catches me for it.

Likewise for Josa and Balyss. I'd like to knock a couple of the things I listed off first before talking to either of them, but they can catch me whenever.

Yuria can stay with us. I'll definitely offer, after checking privately with Neve if it's okay.

Since Ves has nothing go on except her background, simply getting introduced and integrated is all I want.

Arachiel is happy to make time for anyone who wants to talk with her!

Arachiel also needs a home. If Yuria doesn't want to go spelunking, she's welcome to split an apartment or something with Archie.

I was thinking in terms of solo stuff when I made the previous post, but I'd certainly be happy to meet Ves and show her around. And if W wants to tag along for the Ilmater visit, sure why not.

Dune, Arachiel is eventually going to need housing, even with only two hours of sleep a night. Are there any smaller places for sale or rent around in Balmuria?

Quote from: Yuthirin on June 27, 2011, 09:31:21 PM
Dune, Arachiel is eventually going to need housing, even with only two hours of sleep a night. Are there any smaller places for sale or rent around in Balmuria?

Certainly, I'll post about those tonight along with Merc's stuff.

Sweet thanks.

Yuria is leveled up. She went fighter 2/favored soul 7, nothing too exciting. I may tweak her skills and feats pending deciding on a PrC. I'll need to talk to you about it, Eb, since there's some distinct overlap between interesting PrCs for two favored souls.

Also Merc, a question: Are you gonna update the timeline anytime soon?

I could do that, sure =p

Please do. I find myself using it more and more to keep track of things.

Plus you get +1 awesome points.

Most of the heavy stone buildings are in the Old City. The New City and the Commerce Quarter tend to be fancier and less blocky. On one hand the Old City is crowded and that drives prices up. On the other side, much of the Old City is less prosperous than other areas of Balmuria and this drives prices down. That said, size can be done. Cellars are less common, both between the sea and the fact that Mihail's Inferno and relating laws forbid cellars in the area. If you want a cellar you'll need to look for something in the Western Reaches.

Let me know and I'll give you more info.

---

What sort of lodging are you looking for, Arachiel? Nice? Simple? Cheap? Rich? What's your price range?

I'm looking for something simple and inexpensive. Someplace to put my head and my stuff when I'm not using it. Price range, under 1000 if possible.

Also, did you get my PM from last night RE: Animal Companion & Ring of Sustenance?

Western reaches is probably a good spot to house hunt in. I like Balyss, we can be almost neighbors!

Quote from: Yuthirin on June 28, 2011, 01:37:15 PM
I'm looking for something simple and inexpensive. Someplace to put my head and my stuff when I'm not using it. Price range, under 1000 if possible.

Also, did you get my PM from last night RE: Animal Companion & Ring of Sustenance?

You can get something in the 500 mark range if you just want a little freestanding shack in the Western Reaches. No security and the heating/cooling sucks, but it's cheap.

I didn't get a PM, rehash the details here.

[19:41] <@Infinite_Ko_Loop> Not bad.
01[19:46] <Yuthirin> I think that, after Archie is done talking with Lyris, she will wander off nito the wilds for a few days to recruit herself a bear.
01[19:46] <Yuthirin> Also
[19:46] <Merc> Archie will recruit a fire bear!
01[19:46] <Yuthirin> How many days has it been since Archie became a mortal? I need to know for the ring of sustenance
06[19:46] * Yuthirin was actually hoping for a celestial bear >_>
01[19:47] <Yuthirin> GOLDBEAR
[19:47] <Merc> fiendish bear?
01[19:47] <Yuthirin> No.
[19:47] <Merc> =p

Single story, secure, nothing fancy. Four walls without a draft?

I'm hitting completely empty on creativity, so why don't you two just make up a house in the area you want and I'll price it?

Quote from: Yuthirin on June 28, 2011, 02:00:30 PM
[19:41] <@Infinite_Ko_Loop> Not bad.
01[19:46] <Yuthirin> I think that, after Archie is done talking with Lyris, she will wander off nito the wilds for a few days to recruit herself a bear.
01[19:46] <Yuthirin> Also
[19:46] <Merc> Archie will recruit a fire bear!
01[19:46] <Yuthirin> How many days has it been since Archie became a mortal? I need to know for the ring of sustenance
06[19:46] * Yuthirin was actually hoping for a celestial bear >_>
01[19:47] <Yuthirin> GOLDBEAR
[19:47] <Merc> fiendish bear?
01[19:47] <Yuthirin> No.
[19:47] <Merc> =p

Bear summoning can go without incident when you want to do it. Let me know.

Groovy. I'll come up with one tonight then. Also, bear summon can be done at any time. I figure I'll wander off after my chat with Lyris is done. After the return to sobriety, of course. Drunken animal companion summoning would probably have hilarious results.

I'll think of a house, sure. I don't care about doing an RP of buying it or whatever in either case, if you just want to handwave it for now and say I'm staying somewhere in the western reaches and Yuria is staying there. I'll post something sometime later for you to price though.

I'll run tomorrow for whomever makes it in. Consider it a make up day for today's stomach distress. If you can't make it, no big deal and don't stress it.

OH GOD IF I DON'T MAKE IT I'M GONNA DIEIEIEIEIEIEIEIEIEIE

In other news, I was thinking of a small place in the Western Reaches. Single bedroom, living/dining area, and a kitchen. Wood construction. White paint. Tiled roof, gable. Brick porch, large enough to put a chair and perhaps a tea table, but not much else. I'm figuring it would be valued somewhere in the 700-1000 mark range. Thoughts?

Updated timeline as requested. Current in-game date appears to be November 24. Small time point question on whether Veserya arrives on the 23rd or 24th for Dune.

24th is fine.

Quote from: Yuthirin on June 28, 2011, 05:41:44 PM
OH GOD IF I DON'T MAKE IT I'M GONNA DIEIEIEIEIEIEIEIEIEIE

In other news, I was thinking of a small place in the Western Reaches. Single bedroom, living/dining area, and a kitchen. Wood construction. White paint. Tiled roof, gable. Brick porch, large enough to put a chair and perhaps a tea table, but not much else. I'm figuring it would be valued somewhere in the 700-1000 mark range. Thoughts?

You could get that for 300 marks. I think I overvalued the early houses, and honestly, Balmuria's in a population boom and expanding. With lots of land if you don't mind living outsider the main city, prices should be good.

Purchase'd!

Post that and the GP cost in Loot for recordkeeping.

Done!

That's Corwin levels of initiative, and that man has some initiative in him, let me tell you. Nicely done.

I endeavor to emulate my heroes.

Paranoia time! How much for a hidden, in-floor safe with Arcane Lock built into it? :3

Link me to arcane lock?

merged Ves's arrival into the 24th then.

Thanks, Merc.

As for the safe? In the couple of thousands range. I'd have to do some math on it and that's just a casual guess. I'll do the number crunching and get back to you tomorrow.

Cool.

Okay, Complete Scoundrel notes a false bottom is 50 marks. Let's go with that for the base price of having a hidden safe. The safe itself depends a lot on the quality of lock on it.  Check here and let me know what type of lock you want. http://www.d20srd.org/indexes/equipment.htm Beyond that there will be a price for the safe itself, which depends on how big a safe you want. For the sake of simplicity, do you want a particularly big or small safe?

Finally the Arcane Lock enchantment would need to be attuned to Arachiel. I'm going to assign this a value of 500 marks, purely fiat. So I'd be looking around a thousand marks all added up, pending your replies.

I was thinking 1' by 1', just to hold my golds while not home. If I'm going to be leaving 5k or more at home, there's gotta be more than a wooden door keeping people from my hoard.

After all, if people are willing to stab me in the street, they're probably willing to rob me, too!

And if it's going to cost that much, let's go whole hog. Superior quality.

Let's call it an even 1,000 marks then. If you want that, post it in loot.

Alrighty.

Just realised I gave Veserya 8hp for level 1 instead of the 10 she was entitled to for being a bard/fighter. Corrected now.

Right-o. More HP is always good.

I'm looking at how combat works and toying around with a few things. Do you guys have any suggestions on combat? Ways to spice it up, make it flow better or anything like that are appreciated.

In unrelated news, there will be a full Feedback topic questionnaire in a month or so. Once this Senaril thing has had some time to settle I feel like we're due. Right now I feel like that would dominate replies, and we've been over it already. No sense in retreading ground.

I would appreciate the tactical combat situation being clearer. I already commented on what can make it more fun if you're actually in combat (the various combat options like grapple/bullrush/disarm/trip/etc) and it seems like between myself, Eb and you pitching in, there's a solid enough idea to test in a couple battles. I'm talking about AoOs not stopping the combat maneuvers, and to me looks like it could work.

What I am talking about the tactical situation, then, means the overall board. If we were playing in person, we could have possibly had an actual board and figurines and distances. Too much of the math can be a drag, but not enough of it precludes coming up with an effective battle plan beyond 'we charge' or 'we hold', too, right? Because we are still limited by movement speed and by reach and by spell range and aura radius and all that stuff. To give a more specific example, the goons we fought in the puzzle dungeon that we could only damage from one side? That's something that would be neat to have, but it also requires careful attention to positioning. If you can always be positioned to hit the right spot upon a 5ft move, there's little need to think about it or plot, yeah? Likewise, knowing the distance between enemies in a spread helps, because it means the difference between a charge and a full attack upon 5ft step. Knowing the distances and positioning for us helps know who is covered by what defensive radiuses, and who can be affected by them. Now, if things were this detailed all the time, I don't doubt it would be a drag. But from time to time, or on key details, it would keep things more interesting for me.

Another suggestion is filling the combat area with objects we can interact with. The way this usually happens is with obstacles. So there can be a table between you and the enemy archer, and you can't charge him. You have to either go around (and use your action on that), or roll Jump to vault over the table, say. I think it would be fun if there were objects we could use favorably as well. For example, if leaping over the table gave you a circumstantial bonus. You did, after all, navigate an obstacle and even if they would expect flying death from above, it might still intimidate them enough to give you a slight advantage. Or, to go on an entirely different vein, if there is a boiling pot on the stove, and flinging it at the enemy is actually combat-effective. It could act like a grease effect on the ground for a round, say, or blind them briefly or what not. Cool actions are always nice, but I think that in a system like D&D people would take combat actions that are justifiable (ie, combat actions that contribute to your side winning). So they have to be viable mechanically, since if you repay 'stunting' you get more of it and have more fun. If, on the other hand, stunting delivers an outcome far inferior to a full attack with a sword or axe (or even to a charge or a blast of Magic Missile), people have an incentive not to do it.

Quote from: Corwin on July 03, 2011, 01:20:03 PMAnother suggestion is filling the combat area with objects we can interact with. The way this usually happens is with obstacles. So there can be a table between you and the enemy archer, and you can't charge him. You have to either go around (and use your action on that), or roll Jump to vault over the table, say. I think it would be fun if there were objects we could use favorably as well. For example, if leaping over the table gave you a circumstantial bonus. You did, after all, navigate an obstacle and even if they would expect flying death from above, it might still intimidate them enough to give you a slight advantage. Or, to go on an entirely different vein, if there is a boiling pot on the stove, and flinging it at the enemy is actually combat-effective. It could act like a grease effect on the ground for a round, say, or blind them briefly or what not. Cool actions are always nice, but I think that in a system like D&D people would take combat actions that are justifiable (ie, combat actions that contribute to your side winning). So they have to be viable mechanically, since if you repay 'stunting' you get more of it and have more fun. If, on the other hand, stunting delivers an outcome far inferior to a full attack with a sword or axe (or even to a charge or a blast of Magic Missile), people have an incentive not to do it.

There is a mechanic to do things like this. I brought Dirty Trick in for just that reason, but no one's shown any interest in it yet.

In regards to Cor's mention of circumstancial bonuses for leaping over a table or such, you could look at the Iron Heroes book and some of the rules it has on combat challenges and stunts (http://www.mediafire.com/?hx0c97exdmbjqoh).

They're pretty generic, but it does give a few more options in combat by letting you modify your attack/defense to get bonuses elsewhere or use skill checks to get circumstancial benefits or inflict some penalty on your target.

On stunts though, while I like what they do, having GM'ed with them I would point out that they're incredibly easy to use/abuse and have little drawback. While I'm fairly sure the idea behind the rules is to use them once in a while, as they're currently written they encourage using them all the time instead. You'd probably want to adjust them a bit if you consider adopting them.

Quote from: Anastasia on July 03, 2011, 01:54:26 PM
There is a mechanic to do things like this. I brought Dirty Trick in for just that reason, but no one's shown any interest in it yet.

Because you get AoOd if you use it now without taking on the feats that let you forgo that, right?

Quote from: Anastasia on June 26, 2011, 01:20:34 AM
I agree with Eb by and large here, but I think you also hit a point dead on. It's a lot of fun to have more options in battle. Perhaps a better house rule would be that eating an AoO on bullrush, grapple or other things doesn't stop the action if it succeeds?

Reposting this. Any more thoughts before I make it official?

Go for it, I don't really have anything to add on it.

Just noticed elves get elven and common as languages, so I get one more bonus language. Took draconic.

Duly noted.

Quote from: Corwin on June 24, 2011, 07:05:36 AM
Also, any thoughts on Healing Hymn from Complete Champion p47? It would apparently wreck Suggestion as that relies on Fascinate, but I don't really see that fit her much (part of that is that it inevitably leads to NPCs questioning NPCs during interrogations). And if we start traveling to other planes (such as to get Simmer or just to travel/do odds jobs), the planar handbook's bard ACFs (p29) might work well in replacing Suggestion with a useful ability. Nice chance to diverge from Eb's char, too.

Other notes... can you please list spells from non-SRD sources like Eb does [ie Improvisation (p 121 SpC)] on Neve's sheet? I know where my spells come from and what they do, but I would actually need to look up anything of hers when running her in combat, and it would save me a ton of time. Also, spell-wise, Inspirational Boost (Spell Compendium p123) nicely boosts Inspire Courage by 1, which Neve trails behind with.

You asked me to repost this as a reminder, so here it is again.

Since I apparently forgot house stuff and never posted anything, and too lazy to really think of something fancy at this point, Whurric would like something with one story + stone basement. House should be on the smallish side of things, though I'd like some property space, maybe something with a small pond or just something decorative to make it stand out a little, in the Western Reaches.

Quote from: Corwin on June 24, 2011, 07:05:36 AM
Also, any thoughts on Healing Hymn from Complete Champion p47? It would apparently wreck Suggestion as that relies on Fascinate, but I don't really see that fit her much (part of that is that it inevitably leads to NPCs questioning NPCs during interrogations). And if we start traveling to other planes (such as to get Simmer or just to travel/do odds jobs), the planar handbook's bard ACFs (p29) might work well in replacing Suggestion with a useful ability. Nice chance to diverge from Eb's char, too.

Healing Hymn added. I'll worry about suggestion substitutions when she gains her sixth bard level. That should be in two levels now that she's finishes Sirene Paragon.

QuoteOther notes... can you please list spells from non-SRD sources like Eb does [ie Improvisation (p 121 SpC)] on Neve's sheet? I know where my spells come from and what they do, but I would actually need to look up anything of hers when running her in combat, and it would save me a ton of time. Also, spell-wise, Inspirational Boost (Spell Compendium p123) nicely boosts Inspire Courage by 1, which Neve trails behind with.

Done.

I'm curious what the epic chars have done in the last few years. The only criteria are that it's awesome and that it was active (ie they actually did it rather than have something happen to them or just being there).

You said it's K:L and a basic DC of 10 would give some stuff. I have +4 to the check, and I figure either with SONG or Heroism I can make DC15 by taking ten here. So on the mathy side, I'd be interested in the DC15 results for this question, please.

Could you specify what you mean by epic characters? Narrow the field down a little - to Crimson Guard, servants of Helm, people who wear purple armor, whatever. I need something in IC terms to work with.

I was referring to the epic chars you were posting. You could stick to those who are NPCs and are in/spend enough time in Balmuria, since it's K:L and that presumably wouldn't work on Zaaman Rul?

On the IC side, we sometimes see these uber people and Janson even gets seduced by their epic sexiness so I'm curious what they've done. If people appreciate them, is it because they're just insanely powerful or because they're resting on their laurels, or have they actually done anything in the last few years to earn that? It would also be a decent guideline of what we could do for the city some day.

Okay.

QuoteJanson even gets seduced by their epic sexiness

Hey, super high charisma does strange things to people! <_< Overwhelming force of personality and magnetism draws people to you. It's not that he's an epic character, but that he has a superhuman charisma. To a normal person that isn't used to dealing with that sort of force, it's enthralling and possibly overwhelming. For other epic characters he's not so overwhelming. I don't do this too often, since I don't want to fall into Elminster syndrome with them. It's fun for them to show up occasionally, but not to come in and dominate things since they're super awesome high level. But I digress. It's an interesting digression, but still a digression.

What you're asking is really a segmented question rather than a blanket reply. Most of Balmuria is focused on the Crimson Guard. While almost everyone was a member or still technically is, these days it's said to be lead by Commander Hellman Oberuth. Well, still is, anyway. He's lead it and de facto the entire city of Balmuria since the independence war. He keeps a lower profile these days as he's getting up there in the years. Despite that he's still seen as a city hero, something of a legend that's endured countless battles.

Argh, again I disgress. The Crimson Guard hasn't had as many overt actions as it had in it's youth. With Malmuth a memory and most local threats tamed, befriended or neutralized, big and obvious events aren't as common. The mythal stops several types of shenanigans in the city by itself, though rumors of farther afield missions are common. Right now the current rumors are buzzing with a new war between Kelara and Nodlitz in the far west, and that various members of the Crimson Guard are involved. At least that's the rumor, though who's involved varies from tale to tale. Other stories puts them in Malmuth, in Pallanth, farther east in the whispered lands past the Amaryl Ranges, to the south in the Southern Confederacy and more.

The names always vary. Eudard, Abagail, Oberuth, those names and others.

Of the Crimson Guard below him are several other famous members. High Watchman Eudard was a compatriot of Demedais the Prophet and fought at his side several times. Since then he's been at the forefront of the Crimson Guard. He participated in the Pines War, defeating several forest giants singlehandedly and repelling an assault from the forest giant chieftain. He keeps a presence in the city, directing Helm's church and taking an active role in the world around him. He often guides promising heroes  - interestingly this would ping on Aaeru's radar, as the High Watchman of Helm is the one who talked to Lyris and Neveril.

Abagail Aryn you've also met recently. She's known as a powerful archmage and a disciple of Seira Aryn. Besides her own participation in the Pines War, it's known that she confronted the pit fiend Baalbal, banishing it back to Baator in a dawnbreak battle over Victoria. This was approximately three years ago. Stories tell a tale of corruption, a vile monster trying to corrupt and destroy the government of the Baronies before being exposed and ultimately defeated. Beyond that she keeps a presence in the city, having a few students and often teaching lawful magic to those with the potential to learn. Indeed, it's known she has ties to Mechanus and stories say she can summon and command Inevitables, the clockwork soldiers of Mechanus.

The people do genuinely appreciate them. Most adults are old enough to remember Kondrux or the Night of the Walking Dead, so appreciation comes easily. Every so often something big and attention getting becomes a big story and sends people talking again. Of course, less obvious things are the meat and drink of rumor, and perhaps some of them are true.

QuoteIt would also be a decent guideline of what we could do for the city some day.

Feeling civic-minded? There's some hooks floating about if you're interested in pursuing that - Cran's offer is the most obvious. It's not terribly subtle that you guys are building a reputation and have gotten some publicity. What are you all going to do with it?

---

I excluded Seira and Alicia from this. As deities they speak for themselves and aren't really a part of the proper Guard any more. Antenora, Latha, Donald and Amaryl are more connected to their respective patrons than the Crimson Guard. Still, some basic details following.

Antenora: Her name is known as a servant of Alicia's. According to the doctrine of Alicia's faith, she is an erinyes who was redeemed by Saint Alicia's wisdom and charisma. It's known she walked the world with Alicia and left when she ascended. It is said she is an angel of opal who serves her Goddess even now. Nothing current there. All this is dated.

Latha: About the same as Antenora as far as being with Alicia and serving, then leaving. Details are a bit sketchier here.

Donald: Oh, Donald's known. He comes back to Balmuria every so often. While not a hugely official part of the Guard he's had his battles. He's known to have a mouth that gets him in trouble, and a knack at solving trouble with strength of might.

Amaryl: A powerful elf maiden who is a peerless archer. She's known as much for leaving her position as Scion of House Gaial as much as anything else - it's a sore political point in Pallanth yet. Stories from the west are fairly consistent, that she defeated some sort of desert dragon in the southern wastes of the Fiefdoms.

Merc: You can get a house to your specifications for 700 marks.

Done. And updated sheet balance. Do we have christmas in Balmuria? I almost have enough to buy Yuria a christmas present! Or do I wait on her birthday after all? =p

Quote from: Merc on July 30, 2011, 01:36:21 AM
Done. And updated sheet balance. Do we have christmas in Balmuria? I almost have enough to buy Yuria a christmas present! Or do I wait on her birthday after all? =p

Huh. I have an entire segment written up about Balmurian holidays, but I never thought to post it in world fluff. Whoops! I'll post it in a bit.

Posted. If you're interested in the holidays of a particular faith speak up.

I wonder how fast Cor will say he is? C'mon, you just know he's going to ask about Ilmater. Maybe Eb as well for Sulia.

QuoteI wonder how fast Cor will say he is? C'mon, you just know he's going to ask about Ilmater. Maybe Eb as well for Sulia.

That's a no-brainer, right? Almost begs the question of why you didn't post those.  >_>

P.S.
No Christmas but people could celebrate Seira's birth~

Yeah, lets hear about Sulia and Elven national holidays in case Ves wants to make an event of things.

I'll be posting replies to various things that have stacked up within a day or two.

I've talked to all of you in PM so I'm going to draw this out.

Game over.

I'd like to emphasize again that it's primarily because I've lost the zest to DM this. It's not really any of your faults, but I feel like it's time for a change. I want to make this official - the more I think about it, the more right it feels. I also want suggestions for new games, ideas and all of that. I have two I've bandied around PMs and they're familiar, so I won't be overly long in describing them.

1. Balmuria 1 pickup.

Pros: Familiar, strong cast, epic level play.
Cons: Epic level play, difficult for Merc/Yuth to get involved in and interested.

2. Planar-styled game.

Pros: Rotating scenery, lots of chances to see the wide multiverse.
Cons: I know Cor's not interested in it, lack of a home base or place to call your own.

Those pros can cons are debatable and could be worked around.

In addition, if we run D&D and this game world, it's possible for game elements from this world to show up in another. What characters, game elements or other such are you fond of? There were plenty of good elements in this game, so speak up about this.

By all means add your own ideas. I'd really like more of them!

I'll be doing an overall game feedback post a little later tonight.

I'm not terribly keen on picking up Balmuria 1 either. Planar would be awesome, and it's still not impossible to have a home base - just give us a place in the Outlands or somewhere with planar links/portals everywhere and we can go out and adventure from there. Or to make it more organic, toss us on a random plane where we can adventure and plane-hop for a while before we find a place we like to make our own to come back to inbetween questing across the multiverse.

As far as remaining within the game world, keeping the deities and history is fine, but I honestly wouldn't mind a change. At the very least, I'm tired of Balmuria the city.

Quote from: Ebiris on August 05, 2011, 03:06:19 PMPlanar would be awesome, and it's still not impossible to have a home base - just give us a place in the Outlands or somewhere with planar links/portals everywhere and we can go out and adventure from there. Or to make it more organic, toss us on a random plane where we can adventure and plane-hop for a while before we find a place we like to make our own to come back to inbetween questing across the multiverse.

My idea to solve that problem was some sort of astral ship or moving fortress. Sorta taking your home base along with you, you know?

QuoteAs far as remaining within the game world, keeping the deities and history is fine, but I honestly wouldn't mind a change. At the very least, I'm tired of Balmuria the city.

Yeah, that rings true. It's definitely time for a change of scenery.

It's really hard to think of compatible games. I wouldn't mind a post-timeskip B3 which is heroic once more and all about saving the universe (tm) and challenging the ruins and traveling the planes (for justice).

I wouldn't mind a non-D&D game, either. It's really hard to come up with things... I think about the only thing I would like to try and Dune doesn't dislike is Warhammer 40k. The EVA fanmade system or any of the existing ones could be pretty fun to try.

Quote from: Corwin on August 05, 2011, 03:10:17 PM
It's really hard to think of compatible games. I wouldn't mind a post-timeskip B3 which is heroic once more and all about saving the universe (tm) and challenging the ruins and traveling the planes (for justice).

Honestly, I was toying around with blending that with the planar idea plus some sort of mobile home base. You remember how the Cauldron could move about the Astral Sea? Imagine a (smaller) home base that did that across the planes.

I've stated interest in non-D&D games myself (and a desire to do something anime-flavored, just as long as it wasn't F/SN or Madoka), though I have no problems with D&D either. I don't really have anything to suggest on the d&d front outside of a preference to stay away from epic gameplay, or at least not starting at that level.

Dibs on pilot.

I'm not really into a daily game of adventuring across the universe without a real cause or home or friends beyond the group of other hobos traveling with me. I actually disliked a lot of the implications of Planar where the PCs caused a war to break out but just left to keep on traveling, for example. I'd be obligated to stick around, and that would just bog us down. Really, what I'm worried about here is that I'll try to start looking for a home and make friends I'd want to keep on meeting and that all this stuff would clash with the spirit of traveling the game seems to have and it'll come down to either me enjoying the game or the other players. If you guys think this prediction is spot on, I'd rather preempt it by not playing.

Quote from: Merc on August 05, 2011, 03:15:35 PM
I've stated interest in non-D&D games myself (and a desire to do something anime-flavored, just as long as it wasn't F/SN or Madoka), though I have no problems with D&D either. I don't really have anything to suggest on the d&d front outside of a preference to stay away from epic gameplay, or at least not starting at that level.

I'm thinking mid teens for level? Higher than Balmuria 2 but not all the way into fullblown epic. Think 13-16 range.

Quote from: Corwin on August 05, 2011, 03:17:00 PM
Dibs on pilot.

I'm not really into a daily game of adventuring across the universe without a real cause or home or friends beyond the group of other hobos traveling with me. I actually disliked a lot of the implications of Planar where the PCs caused a war to break out but just left to keep on traveling, for example. I'd be obligated to stick around, and that would just bog us down. Really, what I'm worried about here is that I'll try to start looking for a home and make friends I'd want to keep on meeting and that all this stuff would clash with the spirit of traveling the game seems to have and it'll come down to either me enjoying the game or the other players. If you guys think this prediction is spot on, I'd rather preempt it by not playing.

You'd need a reason for traveling, a reason to possibly recruit friends and build your fortress. The more I think about it, the more that it takes on elements of Sim Colony. You guys have some reason to be traveling and recruiting allies, friends and all of that to add to your fortress. Almost like a mobile Suikoden game, only with more frogs and succubi.

I'm fine with playing Suikoden.

What do the rest of you think of that idea, then? Interested at all?

This could be fun. Maybe we're refugees from some sort of apocalyptic cataclysm and we band together to scour the planes for a way to fix things/undo it/take revenge/stop it happening to others. Happen across our Throne of Bhaal style pocket-plane or Ancient city ship or whatever early on and use it for our base as we go forth doing this or that.

Quote from: Ebiris on August 05, 2011, 03:24:01 PM
This could be fun. Maybe we're refugees from some sort of apocalyptic cataclysm and we band together to scour the planes for a way to fix things/undo it/take revenge/stop it happening to others. Happen across our Throne of Bhaal style pocket-plane or Ancient city ship or whatever early on and use it for our base as we go forth doing this or that.

That works as an idea. I'll throw another one in: Insert power/god/faith charges you with the fortress and go seek out worthy warriors and aides to bolster their forces. With the state of the planes, recruitment is always at a premium. Alternately, perhaps the moving fortress uses some magic on the group to compel them to gather people for an unknown reason or otherwise beseeches them?

I'd want to see a clearly defined and eventually achievable goal rather than something vague, and I'd very much want to have my free will to work towards it than being coerced.

Quote from: Corwin on August 05, 2011, 03:30:20 PMI'd want to see a clearly defined and eventually achievable goal rather than something vague, and I'd very much want to have my free will to work towards it than being coerced.

Okay, that would rule out being coerced by the fortress at the least.

Much as I loathe Stargate Universe it's the execution that sucks. The basic idea has plenty of merit. There's an ancient ship that keeps on traveling on its own, and it makes periodic stops at various places. The people on it have the goals of surviving, trying to learn more about the ship to control it and of going home.

Quote from: Corwin on August 05, 2011, 03:34:28 PM
Much as I loathe Stargate Universe it's the execution that sucks. The basic idea has plenty of merit. There's an ancient ship that keeps on traveling on its own, and it makes periodic stops at various places. The people on it have the goals of surviving, trying to learn more about the ship to control it and of going home.

With a basic planar setting and mid-high levels, a simple traveling ship isn't going to keep the PCs from going home. They're gonna shrug and cast Plane Shift, find a portal or otherwise get their asses home. It would need a reason they're sticking with the ship.

Yeah, I don't really care to have some dude tell us to go be recruiters for his army. If it's something left to individual characters that happens to coincide - one wants to restore their homeland, another wants to kill whatever attacked it, another wants to figure out how the BBEG pulled it off, etc... that can all entwine together for us to be allies as we go forward while still allowing for disparate origins and concepts, and it gives us more to do than simply recruiting dudes. Gathering artifacts and sources of power, plumbing forgotten depths for ancient lore, all that stuff just as much as gathering allies to our cause.

Quote from: Ebiris on August 05, 2011, 03:36:34 PM
Yeah, I don't really care to have some dude tell us to go be recruiters for his army. If it's something left to individual characters that happens to coincide - one wants to restore their homeland, another wants to kill whatever attacked it, another wants to figure out how the BBEG pulled it off, etc... that can all entwine together for us to be allies as we go forward while still allowing for disparate origins and concepts, and it gives us more to do than simply recruiting dudes. Gathering artifacts and sources of power, plumbing forgotten depths for ancient lore, all that stuff just as much as gathering allies to our cause.

Right. Whatever works for you guys for motivation. Are you thinking more of a Prime Material homeland or something more exotic in the planes?

If this is going to be a planar game, I'd like to encourage non-standard races. I'm thinking of banning raw humans and encourage you guys to take races with +1 to +3 LA or some such. Does the idea have traction at all?

Edit: If we use gestalt again this is admittedly a lot more manageable.

Make planar travel 'lost magic' that only the ship and a select few have (and the ship is controlling on its own)? It's not like portals have to exist in every variant of D&D being run.  >_>

I think it would probably be better if there was a mutual goal for everyone. I'm thinking of Suiko V and 'save the princess, stop the villain' sounds like more fun to me than just banding together with others, because that's always assumed to be a temporary alliance until one of the disparate goals is achieved.

Could be anything I guess. With Suikoden yeah I was basically thinking of that sort of D&D prime style fantasy land, but that's just what I pictured not a necessity. Basically we all have a home, something terrible happens - it's conquered by an immortal godking dude, it's overrun with far realm monsters, horrible things from outer space land and enslave everyone, everyone is afflicted with some massive primal curse... whatever, it's a plot device to get us moving and ultimately aim to overcome.

Playing exotic races is cool, too.

Quote from: Corwin on August 05, 2011, 03:42:01 PMMake planar travel 'lost magic' that only the ship and a select few have (and the ship is controlling on its own)? It's not like portals have to exist in every variant of D&D being run.  >_>

I admit that I'm thinking of the Balmuria multiverse here, doubly so since I asked you guys to list what you guys liked in the game. Having  Simmer as an NPC when you're in Fire, running into signs say Latha going by or whatever would be nice and build on what we've already done.

It's why I'm thinking more along the lines of a strong reason to go along with and stay with the fortress.

QuoteI think it would probably be better if there was a mutual goal for everyone. I'm thinking of Suiko V and 'save the princess, stop the villain' sounds like more fun to me than just banding together with others, because that's always assumed to be a temporary alliance until one of the disparate goals is achieved.

The exact motivations are up to you guys as long as they work and you guys band together well. It should be something consuming and inspiring, something you aren't going to leave behind or just view as a job.

Quote from: Corwin on August 05, 2011, 03:42:01 PM
I think it would probably be better if there was a mutual goal for everyone. I'm thinking of Suiko V and 'save the princess, stop the villain' sounds like more fun to me than just banding together with others, because that's always assumed to be a temporary alliance until one of the disparate goals is achieved.

Ideally that's what spending months/years adventuring together changes so that the cruel assassin who just wanted to kill the whatever that killed the only person he ever loved might actually care about furthering the goals of his new friends even after accomplishing that. As PCs we do have a tendency to work hard for each other's benefit after all.

Dune: I don't really want to do this in the B multiverse. Gestalt would make it more fun. Races-wise, I'd like to play something savage species-style on one side of the build rather than have an ECL.

Eb: I'm somewhat skeptical of this but open to seeing it happen.

All of this obviously pends Merc and Yuth adding their own 2 cents. That said, what I'm tentatively looking at is:

Level 13-16, the exact level chosen by the PCs.

Gestalt.

Normal !rollchar.

All Balmuria 2 house rules roll over pending review.

Humans banned, nonstandard races encouraged. I'm thinking from the range of +1 to +4 LA, depending on the exact template or creature. I may frown at an elf, but a half celestial elf with an interesting story may get approved. Talk to me about concepts, I know enough to where I can help make an idea into a mechanical reality.

Aim for competent but not overpowered. I'd favor you guys using sorcerers and favored souls over clerics and wizards when possible.

Quote from: Corwin on August 05, 2011, 03:56:50 PM
Dune: I don't really want to do this in the B multiverse.

That's one thing I'm pretty stuck on. I really dig the continuity it provides, rather than just using a default multiverse. This game's going to be on the planes, so most of that stuff shouldn't come up too often anyway.

The mention of Suikoden has me very excited. The one thing about Suikoden I always enjoyed was assembling a group of characters and building a society out of refugees, eventually assembling a formidable kingdom to strike back at the one that originally wronged the hero.

I could totally get on board with this idea. Adding a Planar-style environment would allow for greater diversity!

EDIT: To elaborate, I'm fine with using a new universe. It would prevent the weird moments where we could be presented with the opportunity to recruit our previous characters.

Keep in mind that my standing time constraints would apply. I would be unable to start until the vacant positions get filled at my office.

I'm happy to join a later date, though.

QuoteEDIT: To elaborate, I'm fine with using a new universe. It would prevent the weird moments where we could be presented with the opportunity to recruit our previous characters.

Well, I see that as an upshot to it. Say you hear about Whimsical Sweets in game, or run across Lyris later on. It's nice, easy worldbuilding we all smile about and helps invest us into the world further. It's not an invitation to have Shar show up and turn things into an emo gloom'n'doom fest.

That's fine. With the format any sort of staggered entry is simplistic and easy to arrange.

Shar and her dad, Cthulhao, are really what I'm concerned about here.

Quote from: Yuthirin on August 05, 2011, 05:13:05 PM
Shar and her dad, Cthulhao, are really what I'm concerned about here.

After the feedback from last time they aren't going to be showing up, no. Not unless you make a point to go to a church of Shar and say Shar has a fat ass. Then all bets are off.

I LOL'D.

Then I could go either way, really.

Though it would be amusing to come across Aaeru, Archie, & Ves leading some kind of celestial army into Hell for some slight.

Quote from: Yuthirin on August 05, 2011, 05:17:32 PM
Then I could go either way, really.

You're sounding more and more like a female PC every day.

Okay, assuming Merc doesn't come in and say something, I'll have more information coming shortly.

I'm not really sure what that's supposed to mean!

Quote from: Yuthirin on August 05, 2011, 05:19:22 PM
I'm not really sure what that's supposed to mean!

I suspect the rate of bisexuality and homosexuality amid female PCs is 80% or higher. One of the perils of men playing women; I don't really fight it too much anymore. What guy wants to play a woman chasing a man rather than another woman?

Hence the joke. It's not funny if you have to explain it, but ah well.

Oh. Well that makes sense. Straight man would have difficulty playing a straight woman, I suppose. I tend to avoid sexuality altogether. >_>

Quote from: Yuthirin on August 05, 2011, 05:24:08 PM
Oh. Well that makes sense. Straight man would have difficulty playing a straight woman, I suppose. I tend to avoid sexuality altogether. >_>

It's easier that way. I don't pretend it doesn't exist, that's unrealistic. Yuria chases after Whurric not out any personal desire on my part, but because that's what she'd do. I can deal with it so I don't mind including it within reason. For what it's worth, I figure Marianne was a closeted bisexual and Lyris is ramrod straight. Everyone else was fairly normal as far as I could tell. Josa was entirely straight, just utterly flamboyant and elven.

It's interesting and I keep very loose track of it, but it's not really required for a character. I just feel a character rings hollow if I don't have at least a vague grasp of how they go and think like that. After all, sex drives us on dozens of conscious and unconscious levels.

Josa never struck me as such, but Marianne set off my Angry Lesbian Alarm.

Quote from: Yuthirin on August 05, 2011, 05:33:51 PM
Josa never struck me as such, but Marianne set off my Angry Lesbian Alarm.

I think you missed the scene where Josa dressed up as a giant pink and white cotton candy.

Marianne? Yeah, that was a small part of her. Her personality wasn't just from that, but it does fit in well enough.

I'm good with adventuring on the planes, the level, exotic stuff, and so forth.

A new board is up for the new game. More information will be posted there.

I'd like to finish Balmuria 2 and provide a bit of closure. Not much - it's easy to drag this sort of thing out and take forever. I'd still like a scene or two just to polish things off. I'll probably do this at some point in the next week as I prep for Balmuria 3. We'll see how it goes.

I want to talk to Abagail about having her take a look at Silver. I've been meaning to and I might as well wrap that up one way or the other.

This will actually help, as I was planning on Archie going on a holy quest to discover herself and her place in the world now. I'd love to take care of that, and it would make her into great Planar NPC fodder.

Wrap up stuff will be late next week to early the week after. Anything for you two, Merc/Eb?

Ves sadly has nothing to wrap up.

Nothing to really wrap up for Whurric honestly. Most plot points of interest to him are things that would expand, not wrap up.

Though I'd kind of like to end on a note where Sylvie comes back and to find out how things went for her, but I don't expect her journey would end any time soon, unless we timeskipped to that point or something to end stuff.

Quote from: Merc on August 07, 2011, 07:50:35 PM
Nothing to really wrap up for Whurric honestly. Most plot points of interest to him are things that would expand, not wrap up.

Though I'd kind of like to end on a note where Sylvie comes back and to find out how things went for her, but I don't expect her journey would end any time soon, unless we timeskipped to that point or something to end stuff.

I don't think Sylvie's story is going to wrap up anytime soon, no. She's a very unhappy person who's gone from rags to riches, from slacker to active. She doesn't have the foggiest what she really wants right now, and she's hurt, upset and lost. To be honest she doesn't want to come home - both because of the memories of her various failures, real and perceived. Calley reminds her of her past relationship, Whimsical Sweets reminds her of all her lost friends that she could've saved if she'd only been a little more focused, even her home reminds her of Janson.

More than anything else, she doesn't want to forgive herself or let go. She can't save Janson - nor does he need saving - but she refuses to accept that. It's unhealthy and beneath her, but she doesn't care. She has friends and family, but can't make peace with them and accept what she's lost. She's gained power, but it's meaningless to her since she can't get what she wants. She can't find solace because she won't accept solace.

I wasn't planning to have Sylvie come back for a long while, if ever.

I wouldn't be surprised completely if we came across a morose Sylvie as we Planar.

One doesn't need to have a natural 18 in int to figure that one out.

Okay, I have two things and if possible I'd like to do a brief group scene to cap things off. Earliest would be this Friday(Unless Thursday is the only possible day for a group thing then I'll shift things forward).

Okay, I'm looking for Monday/Tuesday to cap off Balmuria 2. Monday will be anything you want to wrap up solo and Tuesday will be for a group scene.

Merc, if you're feeling better and can make it, can you show up tomorrow? I'd like to finish off Balmuria 2 then if you're rebounding. If not, not.

I'll be here, though not sure what state I'll be in. That said, I'll likely be at least 30min late from what was usual start time.

My mother's original flight back got cancelled and the one she managed to get moved to arrives just before noon, so my sister won't be able to pick her up like they'd planned, and now I'm stuck having to go doing that instead, even though I'd rather stay in bed. :/

Okay. If you're here and up for it we'll go. If you aren't, no big. Just rest up if you need to.

Early morning texting waking me up to tell me the -new- flight's been delayed. Since it was a connecting flight through miami now, she's missing that connection and has to check there when the next flight from there will be. So instead, I'll be here on time and may have to bow out early instead once I get some updated information on what time she'll actually be getting here.

Yuth, I'll toss some feedback on that custom crap post in here in a little while.

It's not done, just a few changes to the 3.5 Necromancer class. I had to post it because I didn't want to lose it.

I'll work on finishing it up now.

What book is necromancer in?

Okay, as this is in progress I'm not going to mention anything that's missing and should be there, unless critical to something else. As a note of reference:

> Are you meaning for this to be Balmuria houserules compatible, general 3.5 compatible, Pathfinder compatible or...?
<Yuthirin> General

Spells per day is cleric casting minus domain slots? Okay. If they don't get domains you may want to give them an extra spell per level to compensate or something else to make up for that.

Using variant moderate progression saves for fortitude? 3.5 RAW doesn't have that, though I think there might be rules for it in Unearthed Arcana.

Okay, so Preserver's Aura is negative energy damage? Make sure to explicitly say that. I'd also remove the save for half, there's not much need for it. The damage is extremely minimal at all points. The aura could and probably should expand in range as well. You could pattern aura range increases to fill dead levels if you wish.

Ancestral Ally is not very good. Spending a bundle of turn attempts for a skeleton fodder isn't very worthwhile, doubly so since undead HD are pretty weak. You'll notice undead tend to have a lot of HD to make up for poor BAB and RAW no boost to hit points besides hit dice. I'd make it some sort of unique ancestor that's more potent than a skeleton, has more HD or something to make it worth while. I'd also make it cost 1 turn or use an alternative method to fuel it - multiple turns for more HD rapidly scales the ability out of any practical usefulness. At level ten, you'd be spending 5 of your daily turns for a 10 HD skeleton. That's a horrible deal. You'd be infinitely better off casting summon monster or summon undead.

Empowered magic isn't bad but isn't terribly great. Mainly it needs to be tightened up and better defined. What sort of spells consist of debuffs? What are you aiming for? When designing 3.5, being precise about terms and what you mean really is critical. The way the entire system is set up, ambiguity can lead to problems, both innocent and exploitative.

http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Necromancer_%283.5e_Class%29

Okay, I found out that you used this as the base.

At this point, let's reduce things back down to basics. You're looking for flavor along the lines of shaman/spiritualistic, with a wiseman summoning the spirits of his ancestors for guidance, power and the like? I don't think you're well served with this base. I'd look at the Spirit Shaman from Complete Divine. That's a lot of what you're aiming for. You can use that as a chassis and add ACFs to get where you want to be, make a PrC for it that fits it better, or just strip the abilities out and use it as a husk to fill in.

Yeah, I hadn't really gotten to Ancestral Ally yet. I was gonna strip it down and make it into a buffed up summon for a single meat-shield class undead.

Checking Spirit Shaman now.

EDIT: Wow, Spirit Shaman is MUCH better. This is great! http://dungeons.wikia.com/wiki/Spirit_Shaman_(3.5e_Class)#Victory

Cleaning out my DM box, a few odds and ends from Balmuria 2 of notice. Feel free to comment if anything warrants it. Formatting is minimal.


Mythal Access [General]
Prerequisite: Possession of a Mythal Crystal.
Benefit: You can tap into the powers of the Balmurian Mythal. You can cast the following spells while within Balmuria: At will-Cure light wounds, quench, create water, haste, invisibility purge.

These notes here never had a chance to come into play. Alas.

So what AM I going to do with the Fiefdoms? I have a few things that I know are happening:

1. The Pasha is old and getting close to dying.

2. They're prosperous and enjoying some patronage from Seira due to her revitalization efforts of the Wastelands. This applies to the nobility and merchant class. The lower classes are still recovering from losses in traditional trade routes due to Seira's network. I don't want this all Malmuth level unstable, but it's a shaky time. Some social dissent is brewing.

3. Magic is making desert exploration and even expansion more feasible. It's possible there are a few settlements off the trade paths a bit.

Hm.  A lot of low level, subtle play rather than anything obvious. Cloak and dagger shit, manipulation, small scale struggles. Lots of opportunities for jobs if the party goes that far afield.

Celestial Paladin

Celestials often make ideal paladins, able to uphold virtues past that almost any mortal. However, they approach being a paladin differently than a mortal does.

Hit Die

d10

Requirements

A celestial paladin must be an outsider with the good subtype.

1: Lose aura of good and detect evil, gain reveal evil.
3: Lose divine health, gain ?*

* This assumes that outsiders are immune to disease. This isn't said but often assumed.

Reveal Evil (Su)

A celestial paladin's light is such that evil cannot hide when close to it. Any evil creature within 10 feet of the celestial paladin glows a dusky red with flecks of black. This targets any creature within range of the paladin, even if invisible or otherwise undetected. In addition to functioning as a faerie fire spell on the target, nonevil creatures that view a creature affected by this aura can sense it's depravity It's evil is for all to see, no lies able to disguise it. A will save (DC 10 + 1/2 hit dice + cha modifier) negates this ability. The celestial paladin may suppress or active this ability as a free action.

15. Several barrels of salt: 80 GP. - Those barrels of salt one time had GP value. Ah well.

Devoted Commander [General]
Prerequisite: Smite evil 1/day, able to project a minor aura
Benefit: Your paladin and marshal levels stack to determine your smite evil and aura progression. - Don't know why I made this, since it's not useable in gestalt.

Exalted Faithfulness [Exalted]
Prerequisite: Must possess a code of conduct or a vow, such as a paladin's code, a cleric's faith, a vow of poverty or other such thing that can result in a loss of powers if violated.
Benefit: A small holy symbol forms on your head. This functions as a phylactery of faithfulness. - There is a similar feat in one of the FR books, but I never found it until long afterwards.

Random fragment of design theory.

Reasons to nerf a spell:

1. No save or way to avoid it. Some battlefield control falls into this.
2. So good that it's a no brainer.
3. Absolute defenses should be rare and not in the domain of low levels.

Reasons not to nerf a spell:

1. Breaks a certain type of game. Comprehend Languages is godlike in a game about translating old languages, but that doesn't mean it is in most other campaigns. This goes into specific house rules. There's a lot of gray areas here, err on the side of caution for now.

Sorc/Wizard

Protection From Evil: Should be reduced to a bonus to saves against enchantment, rather than blocking the entire school. Rule 3.
Magic Missile: Closer to a level 2 spell than level 1, but so iconic it gets grandfather claused in. -
Glitterdust: Remove blindness aspect. Rule 2.

http://dnd.savannahsoft.eu/feat-2259-prophet-of-the-divine.html - Was gonna give this to Balyss one day. It would have been fitting, eh?

Never really worked this out, it's still beta.
Cauldron Iron

This rare iron is forged in the Cauldron, heated by elemental fire, cooled with elemental water, shaped with elemental air and hardened with the spirit of elemental earth. Weapons and armor made of  Cauldron Iron are 25% heavier than normal iron, but have a hardness 5 points higher than the norm for steel.  In addition weapons made of Cauldron Iron retain some spark of elemental power.  When a weapon made of Cauldron Iron strikes a target vulnerable to fire, cold, electricity or acid, the weapon sparks with elemental energy, dealing an extra 1d6 points of the elemental damage the creature is weak to. If the creature is weak to more than one type of elemental damage that Cauldron Iron can affect, the wielder may choose which type manifests against that enemy for the encounter. Armor made of Cauldron Iron shields the wearer from elemental harm instead, granting energy resistance 2 to fire, cold, acid and electricity.

This rare iron alloy is forged in the Cauldron and imbued with the elemental spirits that live there. Equipment made from Cauldron Iron is heavier than normal, but it offers elemental power.

Weapons and armor made of Cauldron Iron are 25% heavier than normal iron. In addition, weapons made of Cauldron Iron have a spark of elemental power within them. They deal a point each of fire, cold, electricity and acid damage per strike. This extra damage stacks with any other elemental damage the weapon does, such as flaming or frost. Cauldron Iron counts as cold iron for the purposes of bypassing damage reduction.  Armor made of Cauldron Iron grants energy resistance 3 to fire, cold, electricity and acid.

Type of Cauldron Iron item	Item cost modifier
Ammunition	+60 marks
Light Armor	+5,000 marks
Medium Armor	+10,000 marks
Heavy Armor	+15,000 marks
Weapon	+3,000 marks
Shield	+2,000 marks

Half idea, half template/epic spell exercise. It was originally named Syala's lovely defender of the home, but that was too magical girl-esque. Syala would be an amusing magical girl.

Syala's Awaken Defender of the Home

Level: Drd 10
Components: V, S, DF
Casting Time: 24 hours.
Range: Touch
Target: Animal or tree touched
Duration: Instantaneous
Saving Throw: Will negates (harmless)
Spell Resistance: Yes

This spell functions as Awaken with the following exceptions. The creature gains an additional 4 hit dice on top of the normal benefits of Awaken. Further, it gains the Defender of the Home template.

Material Component

Rare herbs and incense worth 10,000 marks.

Creating a Defender of the Home

Defender of the Home is an acquired template that can be added to any animal or tree through the Syala's Awaken Defender of the Home spell (referred to hereafter as the base creature).

A Defender of the Home uses all the base creature's statistics and special abilities except as noted here.

Size/Type

The base creature's size and type do not change beyond the changes from Syala's Awaken Defender of the Home.

Armor Class

The creature's natural armor increases by 4 points. Further, it may apply it's charisma modifier as a deflection modifier to armor class (see below).

Special Attacks

Special Qualities

Defender (Ex)

A Defender of the Home is created to protect a home, religious area of Syala or similar. This may be any area equaling 100 square feet and 25 square feet tall per caster level of Syala's Awaken Lovely Defender. Once dedicated to an area, the choice cannot be remade. The base creature gains many benefits while within the area it defends, as explained below.

Awareness (Su)

A Defender of the Home is automatically aware of any and all creatures that are within it's chosen area. It knows it's precise location, type and alignment. This sense defeats invisibility, etherealness, hiding, blur, blinking or any other effects as such. This allows it to strike invisible creatures true and ignore the miss chance from spells such as blur or blink. Further, it may strike ethereal creatures within it's chosen area as if it's natural weapons and special attacks possess the ghost touch quality. Nondetection and similar spells are ineffective against this power. Mind Blank and Darkstalker are not automatically effective, though they do give a chance of evasion; a Will save is allowed on first entering. (DC 10 + charisma modifier + 1/2 base creature's hit dice + 4 racial bonus.)  Success allows them to be undetected, failure allows the Defender of the Home to pinpoint them with Awareness.

The save DC is charisma based and includes a +4 racial bonus.

Teleportation (Su)

A Defender of the Home may use greater teleport as a swift action, but only within it's chosen area. It is not impeded by any local conditions that bar teleportation, due to it's intimate connection with the area. External conditions, such as casting dimensional anchor on the Defender of the Home, are effective.

Shield Other (Su)

As a free action, the Defender of the Home may choose to take half the damage anyone within his chosen area takes. This functions as a shield other spell, but need not be precast. The Defender of the Home must be aware of the attack to use this ability.

Devoted Defender (Ex)

The Defender of the Home is possessed with an unyielding desire to protect his chosen area. This manifests in several defensive ways, all of which only function while within the chosen area. It gains it's charisma modifier as a deflection bonus to armor class and as a bonus to saving throws, damage reduction 15/epic, mettle and evasion, fast healing 10, energy resistance(all types) 50, and spell resistance equal to it's hit dice+12.

Abilities

Increase from the base creature: Con+8, Cha+8

I may use Defender of the Home later on, we shall see.

Ice in the Veins [General]
Prerequisite: Base Will save+1
Benefit: You gain a +4 bonus on your  modified level check to resist being intimidated. - Think that one merchant had this.

Unrelated but in my Balmuria 2 notes for some reason.

I'm aiming within 2 HD or so of final numbers. Hopefully.

Akane: 5 HD.
Cologne: 23 HD.
Happosai: 23 HD.
Kasumi: 2 HD.
Kodachi: 10 HD.
Kuno: 8 HD.
Nabiki: 2 HD.
Ranma: 18 HD.
Ryoga: 18 HD.
Shampoo: 11 HD.
Tofu: 11 HD.
Ukyou: 10 HD.

Katchu Tenshin Amiguriken (Ex)

Ranma can strike dozens of times in a split second, overwhelming an opponent with a flurry of fists. As a standard action Ranma may unleash the Chestnut Fist on one target. It deals triple normal damage. Further, due to the strikes softening up the target, it halves any damage reduction the target possesses.

Not sure which debate this was from.

Josa's an interesting example. He's highly intelligent(22 int) coupled with a low wisdom(9) and above average charisma(15). This leads to all sorts of clashes where he has good ideas or gets something accurately, but doesn't always take action in the most advantageous manner. Sure, he has a great vocabulary and can make big speeches, but he has flaws as a leader and sometime gets himself into trouble. He should look like a fool on occasion because of his wisdom. There's nothing wrong with that; at the same time it doesn't undercut Josa's intellect. Was Seira a short bus candidate for her mistakes? Intelligence is no guarantee of perfection, let alone through the prism of another person's point of view.

For what it's worth, Josa's verbosity and general demeanor is over the top on purpose. He's a drama queen and a windbag, it's part of his charm. His 'charm', if you prefer sarcasm to it.

Shield of the Mist [General]
Prerequisite: Must have died, visited the Well of Souls and been resurrected.
Benefit: Some of the mists of the Well of Souls linger around you. Once per day as a swift action you can manifest these mists around you. This provides you with concealment, granting you a 20% miss chance. Against incorporeal attacks this bonus rises to 50%. This lasts for one minute.

Breath of the Mist [General]
Prerequisite: Shield of Mist
Benefit: You can gather up the mists around you and exhale them in a cloud. Three times per day you may use Obscuring Mist as a spell-like ability, with a caster level equal to your hit dice.

Embrace of Beyond [General]
Prerequisite: Must have died, passed onto the Realms Beyond and been resurrected, must have been happy with your afterlife and not changed alignment since then.
Benefit: You have gained near unshakable faith in your course in life. You gain a +5 bonus against any spell or ability that would change your alignment or faith. If the ability does not grant a saving throw, you are allowed a will save to negate. Calculate the DC as 20 + charisma modifier if a creature or caster level if an item or unattached spell or effect.

Terror of Eternity [General]
Prerequisite: Must have died, passed onto the Realms Beyond and been resurrected, must have been unhappy with your afterlife.
Benefit: The fear of returning to your torment drives you beyond your limits. Once per day you may choose to reroll any single failed saving throw with a +3 bonus. This is a free action.

Touch of the Otherworldly [General]
Prerequisite: Must have died and been resurrected, wis 15, cha 15, must be mortal until you take this feat.
Benefit: Your nature has been changed by your death and resurrection; your body becomes partially spiritual. Your type changes to Outsider(Native).  This grants you darkvision and a few other things, check the SRD for more information.
Special: Once you take this feat, you need not meet the prerequisite of being a mortal.

Drew a blank on this spell, and I never got around to checking if this concept was already done. I bet it was.

Prismatic Shield
Abjuration
Level:
Components: V, S, M
Casting Time: 1 standard action
Range: Personal.
Target: You.
Duration: 1 min/level.
Saving Throw: None.
Spell Resistance: No.

This spell creates a winged disc of rainbow colored force, roughly the size of a heavy shield. It grants you a +10 shield bonus to armor class at all times. This bonus applies to incorporeal creatures and touch attacks. In addition, any creature that attacks you and misses is affected as if struck by a prismatic spray spell.

Josa's fragment of Simmer's letter. He hid it from you, none of you caught his little tell on it or pursued it.

Josa: Hasel says my vocabulary is quite good! Thanks for that. I know you have your problems and it's your choice on how you deal with it, but I think they could help you a lot. There's a noble elf under all that wind.

Lady Jane Kesper, if you were curious. At least her level spread: Knight 10/Sorcerer 4/Spellsword ?

Feats: Multiattack(1), Toughness(F1), Toughness(F2), Weapon Finesse(3), Toughness(F4), Improved Flier(6), Toughness(F6), Toughness(F8), Flyby Attack(9), Toughness(F10), Improved Multiattack(12), Toughness(F12) If you wondered why that brown dragon was so tough. Yes, I cheated.

Melthor, Forest Giant Hunting Ranger

Forest Giant 16//Ranger 16 - Lucky you didn't pick a fight with him.

What in 3.5 do you dislike and why? A logbook of postings by me, maybe to become a topic one day. Maybe.

Sudden Strike

Oh I know! Let's take Sneak Attack and make it even harder to apply! Zounds, this is a killer idea! I'm sorely considering a house rule to turn any instances of Sudden Strike into Sneak Attack instead.

Book of the Nine Swords

I disagree with the assertion that the solution to 3.x warriors it to make them mini-casters. I also loathe the flavor and the execution of many of the abilities, as well as the names.

Grithalek, Bearded Devil 6//Ice Creature 2/Adjustment for side effects 2/Wizard 2