Founded by a famous dragonslayer, the small town of Belhaim has become a sleepy rural community just off the beaten path, a settlement where everyone knows everyone and strangers are the talk of the town. But when Belhaim’s peace and quiet is shattered by the sudden collapse of the last standing tower of its founder’s castle, things quickly bloom out of control. Why were there bodies of kobolds amid the rubble? What’s the sinister secret behind the strange sounds of flapping wings in the night? And what’s happened to local wizard Balthus Hunclay, who’s not answering knocks on his door? The collapsed tower had long been an eyesore to the cantankerous old man—could he have had something to do with its destruction? And what of the rumors of strange stirrings in nearby Dragonfen? Has Belhaim’s ancient draconic nemesis returned?
Starting at first level, expect to get to level 6 or 7.
Stats: 25 point buy, no ability scores below 8 or above 18 before racial modifiers are applied.
Races: All core races and all Featured/Uncommon races with 10 RP (race points) or less are free. By spending 1 point buy, you get up to 2 more RP, so you can spend 1 point to play a Dhampir (11 RP), 2 for a Tiefling or Vishkanya (13 RP), etc. You're still restricted to Featured and Uncommon races though.
Classes: Any Paizo class is ok, including classes from the Advanced Class Playtest (Slayer, Inquisitor, War Priest, etc). There are only early firearms, but you can buy/upgrade them just like any other weapon.
Starting Gold: Average for your class.
Traits: 2 traits. 3 if you take a drawback (but no taking drawbacks that will have no effect on gameplay, like Family Ties).
Alignment: Any non-evil.
Crafting: Crafting is going to be limited to alchemical items, poison, and/or ammo.
Food/Lodging: You don't need to carry food or water unless you plan on using them for something other than sustenance. You also don't need to keep track of how much you spend on food/lodging while in town. If you sleep while in a dungeon, in order to get the restful benefits, you'll need something to sleep on, like a bedroll and blanket.
Ammo: As long as you don't abuse it, assume you have infinite normal arrows, crossbow bolts, sling stones, blow dart darts, and shuriken. If you have the gunsmithing feat, you also have an infinite supply of the normal black power and pellet ammunition.
Encumbrance: Keep track of how much weight you're carrying. Unless you're trying to do something ridiculous, like fit a boat into your backpack, you can ignore size (more applicable later with magic bags). Assume you have as many belt pockets as you want and a single, normal backpack for free.
If you have questions, feel free to ask. Since several of you are new to PBP, at some point in the future I will post again with details/tips as well as some info about where you are/what you're doing at the very beginning of the campaign.
Abe here, proposing a Tiefling Swashbuckler whom I'd be happy to scrap completely (I just love building characters).
Swashbuckler is a new playtest class (I can post the link to the pdf if y'all are interested), halfway between fighter and gunslinger, with the ability to hit hard in melee or at range, depending on what's more important, as well as skills and abilities that align nicely with generally bluffing people.
Since I'm going to be opening the gameplay thread in under a week for open role play, I'm going to go ahead and post some general PBP tips, since I know most of you are new to it. There are also a couple of this campaign specific bits of information (under organization).
If you want, you can check out Doomed Hero's Guide for PBP tips, but I'll be separating out some of the probably more important things below. There will be overlap between the two.
Ex: Kaylor draws his scimitar in one smooth action, imbuing it with arcane power as he strikes at the golem.
Spoiler tags are great for writing things you don't want some people to see or for hiding large blocks of text (for example, if you wanted to copy-paste the exact wording of some class special ability right after using it for ease of reference). I will sometimes use them for results from dice rolls, rolls for monsters, speaking in foreign languages, etc.
Please do not look under spoiler tags unless they're meant for you. It should hopefully be pretty obvious whether you can look under it or not as it'll be labeled with a skill check DC, your character name, a language, etc.
Dice rolls should be pretty self explanatory. Yes, it is possible to manipulate the system. Obviously, try to avoid that.
Other common formatting techniques include bolding things that people say to draw attention to them, and putting thoughts/telepathy in italics.
Combat will be done in a batch system. So if, for example, this was the init order:
Hedwig
Sir Swallow
Galion
Dragons (monsters)
Von Brawn
Kobolds (monsters)
Beatrice
Hedwig, Sir Swallow, and Galion would all go first in any order since they're all before the first group of monsters. It's perfectly fine for Sir Swallow and Galion to post their actions before Hedwig does. Similarly, after the Kobolds go, Beatrice, Hedwig, Sir Swallow, and Galion would be able to go in any order since they'd all have an action before the dragons.
If you're doing some action that isn't a normal attack (like casting a spell, hexing, etc), it's useful if you put the description of that in a spoiler tag or put a link to the relevant webpage. Please make sure to include the DC and what kind of saving throw is needed when appropriate.
When your group is up in the initiative, you'll have 24 hours to post your action or I'll bot you for that round. If you have a specific way you want your character to act, I recommend putting bot instructions in your profile. Try not to make them too complicated.
I haven't yet entirely decided what will be kept in the Campaign thread/tab. Most likely some of it will just be things to help me, but I'll also probably include links to NPC images, quests completed, and possibly open quests.
It's useful for me, you, and the other players to place certain information in your character header (the place where it says your sex, race, and class levels). Information that I suggest you put there:
- Current HP/Total HP
- AC (including touch and FF)
- Save bonuses
- Init bonus
- Perception and Sense Motive bonuses
When appropriate, I will have a link to the current combat map in my DM header line. There is also a map of the main town (Belhaim) at the top of the page that you can feel free to look at. The key for the map is in the Loot/XP spreadsheet under the NPCs tab. In the NPCs tab, feel free to add notes, but don't modify the other columns.
In addition to NPCs, there is also a tab for Loot and XP. Definitely modify the Loot tab. I might update it, but it will primarily be your responsibility. Of course, if you want to keep track of loot some other way, feel free to. And feel free to rearrange that tab as you see fit. I just thought it might be useful to have all it all in one place. Do not modify the XP tab. That is there both for me, and so that you can check up on your progress to see how close you are to leveling if you wish.
Making skill checks/saves/etc: Sometimes I will let you do this. Other times, I will do it for you either for it to be a secret check or simply to speed things up. For example, I will roll initiative for you because waiting a day for each player to do that individually would be silly.
Posting Rate: Normally try to go for at least 1 post day. Clearly, things come up though and sometimes we're extra busy or unlikely to have access to the internet. If you know about this ahead of time, a heads up is always appreciated (along with possible instructions on what your character should do while gone). Personally, I subscribe the RSS feeds and have an application that checks for updates for me on a regular basis.
Editing: Posts can be edited up to 1 hour after you submit the post. This and/or the preview button is/are useful for things like confirming crits or fumbles.
Fumbles: There will be fumbles for attacks. It seems only fair if there's the possibility for criticals. Here's how I'm thinking about handling a confirmed fumble (I'm open to opinions on this):
- 50% chance: You drop whatever it is you were using for the attack. If this is impossible, you trip and fall prone instead.
- 50% chance: You attack a random person within range (including yourself if applicable). If it's a ranged attack, it's a random person adjacent to your target. Make a separate attack roll using the same bonuses/penalties as before vs their AC. Yes, this does mean you might get lucky and hit another enemy.
If you have any questions, feel free to ask.
About the Adventure:
This will be mostly dungeon crawling. However, you are free to interact with NPCs throughout the entire town. They are listed on the Loot/XP spreadsheet along with their current attitude towards you. There are some side quests (mostly for XP) related to changing people's attitudes towards you. You might also hear rumors that could possibly introduce or help with various quests.
Shopping:
Max price of something you can buy is 5,000g. Max caster level is 5th. Assume everything is normal price, but there are a few items listed in the Campaign tab that aren't. Some of them are worth more than 5k, and the price for all of them is dependent on the attitude of the seller towards you.
Misc Character Details:
If you don't pick a height/weight, then if it ever comes up, I'll randomly roll one for you. Similarly, if you don't pick a religion, I'll assume you don't belong to any given religion.
Aw man, that's a pretty comprehensive guide. I usually just link people to Doomed Hero's profile page because I'm lazy.
I didn't have anything better to do, so I went ahead and started the gameplay thread here. When you post, please be sure to include at least a brief description of your character.
Maher here.
I'm working on my character, and am wondering if I take Fiendish Heritage as one of my feat slots, or simply take it and still have another feat at first level. I'm looking at going Daemon Spawn. Also, do I roll for other characteristics?
Also, how do you edit the character header?
Yes, Fiendish Heritage takes up your 1st feat slot. From my understanding of the feat, you pick a heritage (in your case Daemon Spawn for a -2 Wis instead of -2 Cha), and then you roll a d100 three times and get to pick which one of those alternate abilities you want to replace your darkness spell like ability.
You modify your header line by going to your profile and editing the text boxes for sex/class/race. So your "class" may look like
Magus 1 (HP 10/10 | AC 17 ...)
According to the Tiefling race page, taking Fiendish Heritage may also get you an additional spell-like ability (even though you lose darkness)
Chris here, testing the header and the alias thing.
Looks good, Chris. As a gunslinger, though, you're trained with most melee weapons as well, and you might want to get a cheap one of those in case you wind up being stuck in melee at low levels.
it's alex. my character will be a level 1 halfling paladin (hospitaler) with a longbow. i have no idea how to go about creating a character on this forum.
1) Click on My Account
2) Scroll down to Messageboard Aliases
3) Click on Create New Alias
4) Pick a name for your alias (your character's name) and fill out the profile
k, thanks. Hopefully this works.
Is it bad that when I read "Squidget" I imagine something like this?
Also, Alex, looks good, but you also get a few traits. And remember that small size gives you +1 AC, +1 to hit, but I believe it may reduce your bow damage to 1d6 unless you have some way to use oversize weapons. However, if that damage is a concern, 1d6+1 averages the same as 1d8, and because of the size bonuses to AC, shifting two points from dex into str would give you the same to-hit and AC you've got calculated now while also eventually letting you deal the same damage.
dammit missed that. ok, i guess it depends. If i could put some useful debilitating effects via abundant ammunition (when I get it) then i'd prefer to hit over dam. all i could find was this ammunition page and many of these don't seem super useful, especially bc they have a low DC that would scale badly with level. pheromone seems great though (i'm assuming it doesn't stack with itself, bc that would be insane). trip would also be good if i had a better cmb.
Do you know of a complete list of non-magical enhancements that can be applied to ammunition? if i can't find anything really useful, i could also just redo my character to be str based and use melee. Abe, were you going melee or ranged? Also does anyone know if hannah were going to be melee/ranged?
On thing to keep in mind is that to cast abundant ammunition, you're probably going to have to wait until you take a level in oracle. Either that or start pumping Use Magic Device, but by the time you get it high enough to use consistently, you probably would have taken an oracle level anyway.
For arrows, you should look into weapon blanch and poisons. I'm not really sure where Elmar/Tiger's other character found his holy water arrows though, so you'd have to ask him.
Pheremone is nice. Raining Arrows have holy water attached to them, which is good in an undead-heavy campaign. For dealing with living creatures, your best bet is poisons, though (the problem being that a paladin's code might be against poisoning enemies, unless they are both painless and nonlethal).
Trip arrows are great at low level, because they use a flat CMB of +5 INSTEAD of your level (making them useless in high-level games, but right now quite effective)
And I'm going with a switch-hitter character who does fine in melee but can effectively throw all his weapons for equal damage.
ok. i also just realized pheromone isn't quite as good as i'd thought bc the scent ability isn't the ability to smell
As for the code, i'm not sure i understand the logic behind it, since getting skewered by a greatsword or an arrow is both painful and lethal. Also, some of the paladin spells don't seem any better, e.g., Challenge Evil "Sickens creature if it refuses to fight you" (wtf?).
I'd mainly be interested in poisons that either do some sort of ability damage or debilitate them by knocking them unconscious.
I could imagine there being different rules in different circumstances. Like whether I'm fighting a monster or a humanoid or how evil my opponent is.
But the paladin page does say "not using poisons" in the code of conduct, so... oh well... Maybe I'll switch to a melee? I'll finish my character soon, I promise!
With weapon finesse, you could fight in melee and still be a decent archer without changing your stats.
ok. i redid the character to be more melee, this time making it kind of a mashup game of thrones parody. hopefully that's the last of my changes.
ok. i redid the character to be more melee, this time making it kind of a mashup game of thrones parody. hopefully that's the last of my changes.
>pun on "Bastard Sword"
Even if you character isn't completely finalized, feel free to jump into the game. You still have a while before the first combat.
Everybody: At some point I will want a general marching order for when you're going through dungeons. Feel free to start discussing that now. Remember that you will also have a ninja eventually.
Sir Florace: What are you init, perception, and sense motive modifiers? You might also want to put your touch (no armor, natural armor, or shields) and flat-footed (no Dex or dodge bonuses) AC in your character header in addition to your normal AC.
Everybody: I would suggest double checking the macros in the campaign tab to make sure your modifiers are correct. When I need to roll those in a batch, I'll just be copy-pasting that. Which also means people will need to tell me if their modifiers change for any reason.
For that kind of money, Tiger would be happy to march at the front, or guard the rear. He's also got 60 feet of darkvision, if that matters to people.
As far as AC and attacks go:
Tiger AC18 +4 1d6+2
Sir Florace AC17 +? 1d10+?
Sharpe AC17 +? 1d6+?
Arden AC14 +3 1d8+3
I may deal alot of damage so I guess I'll go second or third, after Tiger takes the first punch and maybe Sir Florace goes in.
My suggested order:
Tiger
Sir Florace
Arden
Sharpe
Anyone else have any recommendations?
I'm fine with being near the back since I'm ranged. Although my optimal range isn't as long as someone with a bow. Best case is within 30 feet, I have +7 to hit, 1d12+1 damage.
By the way, right now if I want to shoot every turn, I need to use the alchemical cartridges which I have crafted for 6 gp. Otherwise I have to use a standard action to reload. At 3rd level I won't have this problem anymore.
Once we get better armor, though, Sir Florace will have by and away the best AC.
added skills to char sheet. Also, I might not be the best to go first bc I have a poor perception.
Hiya, sorry for the late join. I think I might run into you guys in the tower.
Just realized that you can actually have alchemical cartridges with special materials, so when I get the chance I would like to craft using the gunsmithing feat:
alchemical silver paper cartridges: 7 gp each
cold iron paper cartridges: 6.5 gp each
(See http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2os96?alchemical-silver-paper-cartridge)
You can craft those once you leave the dungeon for a safe area.
If I remember correctly, Florace and maybe Sharpe were doing a kayak thing this week where it sounded like they might not have internet, right? What time period is that so I can bot you if necessary? Also, if you have specific instructions for that, I'd put them in your profile.
Finally, I shall be mighty displeased if any of you are lost at sea, so be careful.
We're going camping on Santa Cruz island Thursday-Saturday. I'll put instructions in my profile.
The others decided not to kayak there after all, so we're ferrying instead :(
Well, I'm sad you're missing out on the kayaking, but glad that this means none of you might get lost at sea. I'm sure you'll find other fun things to do though.
It looks like Florace and Sharpe aren't going to missing much while on their trip.
Please note: Once you finish talking to Lady Devy you will all be leveling up. You might want to get started on that.
HP: Metro Entertainment style- you get max at each level until you have at least 20 HP. Then you roll for it.
As a POI now that I'm lvl 2 I can essentially cure light wounds 4x per day.
I assume we'll sell unneeded items. Also is there a monetary reward for this quest?
Also, Arden and Aki chose the correct number of hit points for low HP characters at level 3 :D
I put a point in use magic device so I can attempt to cast cure light wounds from the wand if necessary, but I believe Sir Florace should keep the wand for now.
It's on the paladin spell list so I'm guaranteed to be able to use it.
I can also use magic device btw.
How do I get my avatar to show up? I picked one but it isn't working.
I think as long as you choose "Select this avatar" or something and then save when it brings you back to your main character page (with your name and faction choices), it should show up. Is it not?
i can see her account avatar, but i don't see a character one. Is it bc she's trying to add an image after the 10 post limit (like for changing the character name)?
That does not seem to be the issue as I just changed my avatar. Maybe she is changing the avatar of her default alias rather than her Aki one?
1) Under My Account, go to the Messageboard Alias section
2) Choose Edit for the appropriate alias
3) For Avatar Image, click Change
4) Hover over new image and click on Select This Avatar in the window that pops up
5) Click Submit Changes
Gotta say, we're inflicting a fun amount of horrifying carnage.
Heads up for those of you who don't know: I will be traveling/at a conference starting tomorrow until next Monday, so I don't know how much time/internet access I will have.
Oh, they can get even weirder than that.