DM Nagging: It's pretty much my job

[Anastasia]

I'm not really looking for competition. Jumpchain in particular is a kind of thing where I feel like it'd be really hard to balance between different jumpers as it is.

To be fair here, I'm not talking about just jumpchain. More of a philosophical question.

I doubt this changes your answer, though.

[Iron Dragoon]

If I run something new, one question for y'all. In a general sense, would you prefer a game with PCs who are more cooperative or competitive? As a clarifying note, competitive doesn't necessarily mean hostile.

I'm good with cooperative. Some minor competition on things wouldn't be terrible, but I dunno how it works with jumpchain.

[Anastasia]

If I run something new, one question for y'all. In a general sense, would you prefer a game with PCs who are more cooperative or competitive? As a clarifying note, competitive doesn't necessarily mean hostile.

I'm good with cooperative. Some minor competition on things wouldn't be terrible, but I dunno how it works with jumpchain.

Just to be clear again, this isn't automatically just jumpchain. It's not the only idea I have out there.

But so noted regardless.

[Nephrite]

I like riding the Friendship Train.

[Anastasia]

I like riding the Friendship Train.

So noted. I figured this would be a clean sweep by the group along these lines, but why not ask anyway?

[Corwin]

On the recent question, I honestly don't mind whether it's cooperative or competitive. The latter can often lead to tears but probably won't with this group, but it's not like I have a preference for it or anything.

On the ealier question, I thought I responded in PM when you first brought it up. In any case....

Balmuria

1. Should I resume Balmuria, what's one thing you'd like me to focus on as the DM?
2. Is there any custom content you feel should exist in the game world but doesn't? I'm looking for any things I may need to do. No is a perfectly valid answer, so don't strain yourself if nothing comes to mind.

New Game

1. Any general suggestions here?
2. If I do the jumpchain idea, how proficient do you feel with jumpchains? If I gave you a jump document now, would you have any difficulty in making a build with it?

Weekly Game

1. If I run a weekly game, any preferences? I'm open to a lot here.
2. Are any of you interested in trying to run your own weekly game as well?

I share Eb's opinion on the resolution as well as his worries regarding it being rushed in this way. I'm disagreeing with Iddy to a degree, because a full-on focus on Shar and nothing but Shar would just be boring, also Shar is terrible and tends to bring the mood down if there's too much of her. If anything, I'd want a mix of progress on the main plot alongside beating midbosses and advancing secondary goals. As for one thing that I've liked and didn't get enough of? The thing you tried to do last 'arc', with showing us the divine connection to followers and so on. I believe it got cut short due to flagging energy, however, so that's probably not doable at this point in time.
Approach-wise, I was wondering whether it would be easier for you to designate a day per player, and just run for them that day. As a player, it would turn the game into a weekly one, but getting exclusivity would mean some OOC resolutions could happen much quicker, be it on irc or on the forum. For you, it's bound to be easier as well? Unless the actual duration of the session itself is an issue, then it really can't be helped. :/

I do know some about jumpchains, and honestly I haven't met a system I couldn't chargen with, so long as we're not seeking uber-competence. In fact, I do have some interest with jumpchains, so if you're going to do a weekly thing, maybe run that as a test? The draw to me is the actual story rather than the perk list, and it's pretty hard (for me) to find the former rather than the latter in any jumpchain threads.

Current RL conditions don't allow for running a weekly group game at present.

[Anastasia]

Okay, so noted. That all sounds good Cor, I'm going to take all of this and bear it in mind as I make my decision.

[Anastasia]

So one week into this and I do feel better. The rest has absolutely done me some good and I'm pondering how I want to go forward.

Right now the leading idea is the jumpchain one, as this is something that's been in the works for some time. It's been earmarked as my most likely follow up game for B6 before this pause came up, so that's really no surprise. My tentative plan is to take a month or two off of this running something else then come back to B6. We'll see how that shapes up though.

In the meantime, I'm going to post a copy of the Balmuria jumpchain I made in a spoiler box below. Your task is to make a build for it. Now who is taking this is up to you. It can be a fresh jumper, it can be an insert of yourself if that's what you like, it can be whatever. It can even be your B6 character if you want. The point of this is simply a test run in filling out a particular jump document. That's the point of this, so don't be afraid to ask questions here. Mistakes are fine too, I'll check over everything.  So don't worry if you don't understand something, take a stab at it anyway or ask for clarification.

Additionally, I'd like paragraph or so about how the build works and what the purpose of the person who took it is and what they'd do in Balmuria.

I'll fill out a few example shortly to demonstrate the concept.

(Copy/paste excised.)

[Anastasia]

Example 1: Random person off the street's survival build.

Balmuria Jumpchain
Age: 23
Sex: Male
Race: Angel
Alignment: Neutral Good
Perks: A Good Man's Reward (50), Violence (100), Angel (400), Gestalt (300)
Classes: Cleric 30//Fighter 30 (add Prc 20 to taste)(450)
Items: Adventurer's Kit, Gold, Godseed (500)
Drawbacks: Cheapskates (+100), Perfect Head (+100), Rule 0'ed (+600)

Okay, so the logic is as follows.

Age doesn't really matter with the choices here. I just chose the average result of 18+1d10. Sex is whichever you prefer so do whatever you want there, I went with my preference.

Race was human, but is preempted by the choice of the angel perk.

Alignment is neutral good. I chose it basically as a default for the sake of demonstration here. This can work with any alignment, though it gets a lot tighter without a neutral component of alignment.

A Good Man's Reward is purely to spend 50 extra points. It's nice enough for what it is.

Violence is simple. Not only does it teach you how to fight with weapons and your bare hands, it gives you peak human strength, dexterity and constitution. This is pretty essential for a random person tossed into a D&D setting. A longer running jumper could skip this, but it's highly desirable for a beginning jumper.

Angel accomplishes many useful things. It grants the powers of the angel subtype, which is a protective aura as well as tongues. Protective aura's protection from evil stops a lot of mind affecting problems cold, not to mention it gives you protections against evil. Darkvision, low light vision, immunity to acid, cold and petrification, resistance to electricity and fire and finally a bonus against bonus is all nice. Greater teleport's a fine pickup as well, and ageless immortality has obvious advantages, as well as the benefits of the outsider type. That all being said, this can be dropped if you need points since the godseed somewhat overwrites this.

Gestalt's benefit is obvious.

As for classes, cleric is the NG freebie/discount class and I chose fighter as my discounted class. That makes it cost 150 for each block of levels, so 450 total for cleric 30//fighter 30. A PrC should be added and ACFs and all the normal things of a build (including feats, skills, ect) are present but not elaborated here for the sake of a demonstration. The point of those is to both provide solid spellcasting and martial ability.

The Adventurer's Kit and a single purchase of gold are free. Freebies are nice.

The Godseed is obvious. While personally I'm not sure I'd want to be a Balmuria deity with all it brings, it's still too useful and powerful to pass up here. Divinity comes with a heap of advantages, and you can improve from being a mere quasi deity in time. Being a deity automatically makes you of high interest, so you can slide right into somewhere agreeable with some diplomacy.

Finally, Cheapskates hurts a bit but as an epic level DvR0 you can get by with limited funds if you need to. Likewise, Perfect Head is a bit irritating, but pixies and courres generally aren't that big a problem. As for Rule 0'ed? Well, there's nothing to take if it's your first jump. This is somewhat cheap, so if that offends you swap it for any other 600 point drawback you like. I'd recommend Slaadnapped and suggest against Sharnip. Enlisted isn't terrible depending on your build and personal preferences.

This build provides you a lot - a decent amount of power, classes, ageless immortality and divinity. It's not perfect, but it provides you a super solid base for your time in the world of Balmuria. Downside is that you can't go to the Primes unless you advance far enough to make avatars. That means it may not work for some people and their plans, unless you want to buy the godseed and not use it right away. Risky to say the least, but it is possible.

[Iron Dragoon]

Gisela Ilostos
Age: 24
Sex: Female
Race: Human
Alignment: Lawful Good
Perks: Spell Resistance (200), Gestalt (300), Feat: Spear Master (100), Feat: Flagbearer (100), Violence (100), Rebel (200), Benefactor (200), Crusader (100, LG discount)
Classes: (10) Paladin (0)//Bard (300)
Items: Adventurer's Kit, 5000 Gold (0), Warm Blanket (50, LG discount), Ring of Sustenance (50)
Drawbacks: Perfect Head (+100), Enlisted (+600)

Logic/Background-

Logic-wise, there's not a lot to explain aside from combat style and Gestalt. Combat-wise, she'll fight sort of Spartan-style with a spear and shield, with a banner/crest on the spear for Flagbearer.

Gestalt-wise, she's a Paladin//Bard using some Pathfinder Archetypes (Sacred Shield and Arcane Duelist) to be built into a front-line tank, singing songs and orating for Inspiration and commands.

Background- She's an orphan raised by the Church. She leaned towards Bardic abilities while she served in the church choir as a child and could tell the stories from the scriptures in a way that made them come alive. However, she was rambunctious and prone to conflict. In an effort curb and channel it, the priests put a local Paladin in charge of her, hoping the exercise would sap her energy. Unfortunately for them, she took to it like a fish to water.

[Anastasia]

Gisela Ilostos
Age: 24
Sex: Female
Race: Human
Alignment: Lawful Good

Looks good so far.

Perks: Spell Resistance (200), Gestalt (300), Feat: Spear Master (100), Feat: Flagbearer (100), Violence (100), Rebel (200), Benefactor (200), Crusader (100, LG discount)

Okay, a few notes.

1. This isn't a Pathfinder jump, but I handwaved that because this demonstration isn't about the D&D mechanics, it's a way to learn how to make builds from jump documents. Normally as this is a jump that uses the 3.5 D&D rules, you'd be stuck to those. Jumps generally don't offer that sort of flexibility unless it says they do, or have a perk or drawback that allows it.
2. Looking at things, you got the feat perk twice. As a general rule, unless a perk says you can purchase it more than once or a jumpdoc says you can, you can only buy a perk once. Using it to buy Pathfinder perks is off label as well, though I vaguely handwaved it when you asked, so that part's on me.

Classes: (10) Paladin (0)//Bard (300)

You applied the free class correctly to your build, this is good. However, you did miss one important part: Classes are not discounted. However, you may choose one base class to purchase at a discount. So you could apply that to bard and get paladin 10//bard 10 for only 150 points. You could either use the other 150 to go to paladin 20//bard 20 (and maybe a PrC thrown in) or spend the 150 points on other purchases.

Items: Adventurer's Kit, 5000 Gold (0), Warm Blanket (50, LG discount), Ring of Sustenance (50)

Everything looks good here.

Drawbacks: Perfect Head (+100), Enlisted (+600)

Decent choices and the point total balances out.

Logic/Background-

Logic-wise, there's not a lot to explain aside from combat style and Gestalt. Combat-wise, she'll fight sort of Spartan-style with a spear and shield, with a banner/crest on the spear for Flagbearer.

Gestalt-wise, she's a Paladin//Bard using some Pathfinder Archetypes (Sacred Shield and Arcane Duelist) to be built into a front-line tank, singing songs and orating for Inspiration and commands.

Background- She's an orphan raised by the Church. She leaned towards Bardic abilities while she served in the church choir as a child and could tell the stories from the scriptures in a way that made them come alive. However, she was rambunctious and prone to conflict. In an effort curb and channel it, the priests put a local Paladin in charge of her, hoping the exercise would sap her energy. Unfortunately for them, she took to it like a fish to water.

Obligatory repaste of the previous bit about Pathfinder, just in case a reader missed it the first time.

Anyway, I think you're missing one part here, and in retrospect this jump doesn't really explain it so this is my fault. It assumes knowledge you don't have so let me run this down for you. Namely that every entry into this world is a drop-in. Normally in jumpchain when you choose an identity you gain that identity's memories and life experiences, which lets you slide right into that role (amid other things, but beyond the scope of this discussion).

However, as everyone in this jump is a drop-in, that means you insert without a lifetime's experience. In other words, whomever fills out this jumpdoc is inserted as is, like in a crossover fanfic or isekai where a character is dropped into a new world.  They get the purchases they made. So if you were the one who filled it out, Iddy, you'd appear in the universe of Balmuria with all of the powers, abilities and items you purchased here.

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That being said, your build's decent. You get some baseline combat abilities and some tricks to get by. Mechanically you did fine with the demonstration Iddy, and showed you get the concept of how jumpdocs work in general. A few specifics were missed but this is all normal and expected for a first try. Good work.

[Ebiris]

I've got a question, when you buy a class what exactly do you get?

Do you just get the class features? Does that include skill ranks and saves and bab? Hit dice? What about feats every 3 levels (or the human bonus feat) and the stat bonuses gained every 4 levels, do you get them for having taken so many class levels?

[Anastasia]

I've got a question, when you buy a class what exactly do you get?

Do you just get the class features? Does that include skill ranks and saves and bab? Hit dice? What about feats every 3 levels (or the human bonus feat) and the stat bonuses gained every 4 levels, do you get them for having taken so many class levels?

You get everything as if you gained the level normally. So feats, a stat point every four levels and so on. There's not a lot of need to go into the weeds of the D&D mechanics here, as this is fundamentally a learning exercise to use a jumpdoc.

So if you take, say, 30 levels in classes you'd be a 30th level D&D character from that in all ways.

[Ebiris]

So I'm taking the basic concept of a normal 21st century person pulled onto Jumpchain with existing D&D knowledge and sent to Balmuria with a general understanding that they're there for 10 years and then they'll be sent to other weird and wacky fictional settings for more of the same. Here's the build first of all then I'll talk through it.

Race: Human
Alignment: Lawful Neutral (50)
Perks: Honorable (50), Judge (100), Slaad Favoured (100), Free Spirit (200), Planar Perinarch (400), Violence (100), Gestalt (300)
Classes: Warmage 20 (300), Rainbow Servant 10 (300) // Monk 30 (300)
Items: Adventurer's Kit, Gold
Drawbacks: Cheapskates (-100), Perfect Head (-100), Instant Death (-400), Rule 0'd (-600)

First of all, I'm assuming a normal person would be true neutral, so this one pays to swap to lawful neutral. Purely to get that monk discount. Is changing your alignment for power a good thing? Wouldn't say so, but who knows what you'd do when confronted with this kind of situation for real. I chose human pretty much for the free feat plus it keeps things familiar.

Anyway, skip over perks for now, go straight to classes, because that was the priority. The amount of stuff you get from taking class levels offers by far the most bang for buck here. I won't belabour specific build details - the free discount was spent on warmage, monk is discounted for the alignment. I'm not sure if Rainbow Servant could get discounted because it's a casting class like warmage, I erred on the side of caution.

The point of this then is warmage gives all the warmage blasty spells which is nice, but the real prize is rainbow servant adds all the cleric spells to my spontaneous casting list, so that's a huge win. Monk adds a lot of general fighting power, various nice bennies like being able to speak all languages, eternal youth (sadly not full immortality), spell resistance, evasion, and so on. The grab-bag nature of monk powers which makes me hate it as a D&D class actually works really well here. Also it's a good thing to take forward, going into something like Dragonball Z or other martial arts jumps, having that kind of strong kung fu foundation.

As for the build and feats? Lots of metamagic, make sure to get eschew materials/ignore components since there's no way to guarantee having them in the future. Honestly it's surprising the item section doesn't offer something like that. Also take metamagic feats - not just power ones, but still/silent spell. At some point a future jump might offer something like mental multi-tasking and being able to cast spells without words or gestures slowing you down could let you do some crazy things. I won't belabour it too much, I don't want to go through a full on D&D chargen routine here, I'm just establishing what's good to bear in mind because out of context powers from future jumps can synergise really nicely with stuff here.

So back to perks. I took honorable mostly to balance the points with that left over 50, but it's actually a really good public image perk. Judge is also really good for basically running over other people's opinions and putting yourself in charge. Slaad Favoured is great for just being generally luckier at everything, that's the sort of thing that adds up over time. Free Spirit is amazing - in D&D not so much, who gives a shit what the town guard have to say, but in future jumps with stronger and more omni-present legal structures being able to flout any and all laws without consequence is incredible. Planar Perinarch is straight up reality warping on a local scale and lets you ignore any kind of hostile environmental factors - plus if you can turn lava into water, you can probably turn walls into air so getting past physical obstacles is simplicity itself, nevermind using it offensively. It's kind of amazing it's so cheap for what it does. Violence is taken mainly for that peak human physique boost, since being an epic monk more than covers fighting skills. Gestalt was a no brainer, obviously.

Items I just took the freebies. The godseed is tempting, but there's no guarantee of advancing past rank 0 with it. My priority was the immediate power of being an epic gestalt character. None of the other items are particularly impressive to me.

For drawbacks, cheapskates isn't so bad, this build is pretty self sufficient and I could even take item creation feats. In fact doing so's a really good idea just for future growth. Perfect head is no big deal and honestly probably helps in some situations for befriending fairy types. Instant Death is a gamble, but with the casting on offer having defensive spells to counter them isn't too hard. Taking persistent spell metamagic so they're on all day would be a good idea. And Rule 0'd is basically a free points stipend with this being a first jump since there's nothing being given up.

[Anastasia]

Race: Human
Alignment: Lawful Neutral (50)
Perks: Honorable (50), Judge (100), Slaad Favoured (100), Free Spirit (200), Planar Perinarch (400), Violence (100), Gestalt (300)
Classes: Warmage 20 (300), Rainbow Servant 10 (300) // Monk 30 (300)

Gestalt is pasted here for our reference.

Gestalt (300)

You want more classes? Okay. This makes you a gestalt character. When you buy class levels in this jump, you may select two classes instead of one and only pay the price of the most expensive one. You gain both of those levels at once, using all the rules of a gestalt character.

Basically you don't double pay. For each block of 10 levels, you only pay for the most expensive of the two classes. It doesn't clarify what happens if they're both the same price, an oversight I've corrected on the jumpdoc now. It's meant to be so that you don't double pay, since you pay 300 points to be a gestalt character. So let's go through this.

Warmage 10//Monk 10 is 150 for 150 total. (Monk is 0, warmage is 150)
Warmage 20//Monk 20 is 150 for 300 total. (Both are 150)
Warmage 20/Rainbow Servant 10//Monk 20 is 300 for 600 total (Rainbow servant is 300, monk is 150)

So you overpaid there and could reduce drawbacks or purchase other things with the excess points. This puts aside the question of if rainbow servant would be discounted for warmage, we'll assume full for the moment.

Items: Adventurer's Kit, Gold
Drawbacks: Cheapskates (-100), Perfect Head (-100), Instant Death (-400), Rule 0'd (-600)

Okay. You seem to have this down reasonably well otherwise.

First of all, I'm assuming a normal person would be true neutral, so this one pays to swap to lawful neutral. Purely to get that monk discount. Is changing your alignment for power a good thing? Wouldn't say so, but who knows what you'd do when confronted with this kind of situation for real. I chose human pretty much for the free feat plus it keeps things familiar.

I do agree it's a pretty crummy choice to make. Even a beneficial one (such as changing to a good alignment) is a moral and ethical quagmire, as well as an open question of how you'll turn out.

Anyway, skip over perks for now, go straight to classes, because that was the priority. The amount of stuff you get from taking class levels offers by far the most bang for buck here. I won't belabour specific build details - the free discount was spent on warmage, monk is discounted for the alignment. I'm not sure if Rainbow Servant could get discounted because it's a casting class like warmage, I erred on the side of caution.

I'm not sure if I'd allow Rainbow Servant a discount for Warmage. Maybe? I don't think it's really intended, but the build's well known enough that you could argue it.

FYI, Balmuria has a houserule for rainbow servant that splits the text/table difference to 8/10 progression. Isn't really relevant to the point at hand but worth a casual mention.

I won't belabour it too much, I don't want to go through a full on D&D chargen routine here, I'm just establishing what's good to bear in mind because out of context powers from future jumps can synergise really nicely with stuff here.

While not relevant to this exercise directly, this is the sort of thing you should think about in a jumpchain. One eye on how abilities may work with future perks and purchases is always a smart call.

Free Spirit is amazing - in D&D not so much, who gives a shit what the town guard have to say, but in future jumps with stronger and more omni-present legal structures being able to flout any and all laws without consequence is incredible.

I've mostly stayed out of going down the path of which perks are better than others, but I do think you're on the ball here. Okay perk in settling, amazing if you take it with you to future jumps. Some perks are like that, only okay for the world you get them in but with way more potential in future jumps.

Planar Perinarch is straight up reality warping on a local scale and lets you ignore any kind of hostile environmental factors - plus if you can turn lava into water, you can probably turn walls into air so getting past physical obstacles is simplicity itself, nevermind using it offensively. It's kind of amazing it's so cheap for what it does.

It is an excellent perk. I don't think that's arguable.

nstant Death is a gamble, but with the casting on offer having defensive spells to counter them isn't too hard. Taking persistent spell metamagic so they're on all day would be a good idea. And Rule 0'd is basically a free points stipend with this being a first jump since there's nothing being given up.

From the notes section of the jumpdoc:

8. Death ward and similar means to stop instant death from within Balmuria are ineffective if you take the instant death drawback, as Balmuria lacks these threats.

In other words you can't directly block instant death with spells like Death Ward in Balmuria. Those threats don't normally exist, so therefore the defenses for them just aren't there. This isn't to say you can't do other defenses that impact them like spell resistance or counter spells, but it's a bit riskier than you're implying.

Out of jump defenses against instant death would work fine, though.

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That all aside you did pretty well and seem to grasp everything here. Good stuff.