Recruitment: The Quest of the Missing Quill (Pathfinder)

[Haahque]

Big Questions:
1. System is Pathfinder
2. Setting is Medieval Fantasy, variant on the Exile series by Jeff Vogel (more explained below)
3. Up to 6 players.
4. Post every 3 days. I’ll be away for part of June so I won’t start the game before I get back, likely sometime around the 25th (+/- 3 days).
5. Players start at 2nd level. Campaign is expected to end around 7th level.
6. Regular starting items for 1st level pc’s (no masterwork).
7. Players are free to pick their classes (no guns), if they must submit the class (or feat) to me including everything that it gets in the first 7 levels, then I must OK it and post the class where everyone can see it.
8. Core PC races (except half-orc) are encouraged.
Drow, Orcs*, Half-orcs and Goblins are allowed but will have a relationship penalty.
Nephilim and Slithzerkai chracters are allowed, and considered core races, I'll make up stats for them if a player shows interest in them.
9. Stats use 15 point buy.
10. You can use alignment if you want, it probably won’t come up much but it can be a good tool to help you RP. (not required)
11. Multiclassing is allowed.
12. I will be making all dice rolls during the game. To make things faster, initiative will be simplified (all monsters on 1 initiative).
13. Orcs have homebrew stats (more explained below). Masterwork weapons replace +1 magic items. Players do not automatically learn new spells above spell level 1, rather they have to find/learn them from vendors. Spell level 2 will be rather easy to find, while spell levels 3 and 4 will be much harder to find.
14. Players start out as adventurers. It is encouraged to know each other at the start but not required. Players start in the same inn, but can be in different rooms if desired. Character background is encouraged to help roleplaying, but nothing in depth is required.
15. The game will likely involve a combination of hack & slash and puzzle solving. Role playing encouraged and will be rewarded.
16. Generally everything is allowed (if it fits in the setting), anything homebrew must be OK’d by me then shown to everyone. I obtain the right to veto anything. Don’t punpun.

Orc Race
+2 Str, +2 to (Dex or Con), -2 Cha, -2 (Wis or Int)
Orc subtype, Medium, Normal Speed
Orc Feriocity: Once/encounter add 1[w] or 1d8 damage to a single target of an attack.
Weapon Familiarity: proficient greataxes/falchions, any weapon with "orc" = martial weapon
Medium Armour Affinity: 25ft move speed in medium armour.
Poor Marksmanship: -2 to hit with ranged weapons

Setting
There are 3 major factions that players can potentially ally with, each faction will have a “main quest”, completing this quest will cause the player/party to “win” the campaign or bring the campaign to a close. Other than the main quests, it will be rather sandbox. Allying with any faction has lots of benefits, but causes the other 2 factions to go hostile with the player/party.

The Empire:
Primarily composed of humans, the empire owns most of the known world and has brought its law and order to lands near and far. This Provence (Trevis) is on the edge of the empire so its influence is weak here, but never the less it is a force to be reckoned with.
Empire troops to watch out for: Imperial Archer (surprise! It’s a high damage archer!), Dervish (Heavy armored yet very fast fighter)

Orcs:
While nowhere near as large or powerful as The Empire, the Orcs are a warlike race and are very good at what they do. They are good smiths, good fighters and good drinkers. They are also rather lousy politicians and have lost a lot of land to The Empire by means of treaties and political maneuvering. This has given the orcs and excuse to be aggravated with the empire, though they rarely need an excuse to fight.
Orc troops to watch out for: War Orc (Fighter/Rogue with very high damage), Mage Killer (essentially immune to magic, some have anti-magic auras)

Drow:
In terms of power or military might the Drow hold onto their territory by having good spies and covert operations to destroy any plans that threatens them. They’re cunning enough to have no problems with Empire treaties and their homeland is hard to invade due to being underground and full of traps.
Drow troops to watch out for: Sorceress (It’s a powerful mage), Assassin (Expect poisons)

There are also a couple of “neutral hostile” factions that the players cannot ally with, they are generally weaker than the main factions, but can pose a threat to say, a party of low level adventurers.
Here are some neutral hostile monsters to watch out for:
Deathless Ones: (Undead, Almost immune to damage)
Goblins: (They can form large raiding parties, including ogres)
Kraz Kob: (Berserker kobolds that can output crazy damage, but die fast)
Spiders: (They shoot webs which can slow players, if players get hit by enough webs it can stun players)

Players:
JadedDM -> Human Rogue
Just_Ice -> Drow White-Haired Witch/Bard
HorizonsDream -> Human Fighter
VrindleVine -> Human Terraria (based off alchemist).
mgbevan -> Dwarf Paladin
Keymeister16 -> Half-orc Barbarian/Blackblade Magus

[JadedDM]

What happens if different PCs ally with different factions? Or are we supposed to make a collective decision on that?

How tough are you on PCs? Do you deliberately intervene to keep them from dying, do you go out of your way to try and kill them, or are you somewhere in between, letting the dice fall where they may and not intervening either way?

How much Pathfinder experience are you looking for in your players? I'd be interested, but I've never played Pathfinder. I've dabbled very briefly a couple of times in 3E, and I know the two are similar, but not identical.

[Haahque]

Alliances with different factions could be a bit complicated. Basically if players stick together for most of the time, "the party" will share allegiances, so there won't be any alliance conflicts there.
If the players split up often the allegiances will be tracked separately; if players ally with different factions they'll be considered at war with each other, although this doesn't require them to attack the other on sight, it could undermine the trust of the factions they're allied with if they're known to work together.

It's hard to say how tough I am on PC's, obviously I think I have the perfect balance between making some very challenging fights and letting the players live sometimes when they probably shouldn't be able to. I definitely haven't killed many players before, but having a player reduced to 0 HP is somewhat common.

Pathfinder is very similar to 3.5, if you've played 3.5 (multiple sessions irl or a few months of pbp) you probably have enough experience. I haven't done much dabbling in 3.0, but I think it's also similar to 3.5 so, probably good enough. I might as well link the pathfinder SRD: http://www.d20pfsrd.com/

[JadedDM]

Oh, nice. I didn't even know Pathfinder had its own SRD.

I've been in two pbp 3E games, although neither was for very long.

The first game was at the official Dragonlance forums, and it was for Dragons of Winter Night. I played Sir Derek Crownguard, and was a human Noble 4/Fighter 4/Legendary Tactician 1. It was actually a bit nerve-wracking, as I had never played 3E before, and here I was with a level 9 character that someone else had built for me. However, I was only in for 4 months before the DM got burned out and put the game on indefinite hiatus (that was 3-4 years ago).

The second game was here at Planet, Two Steps from Death. I played a level 1 human monk. I was only in the game for a month before the DM vanished.

So assuming that's good enough, I'm in if you'll have me. No idea what to play, though. It's been so long since I've been a PC. Since December of 2013, I believe.

[Haahque]

Sure sounds good. I've been doing a bit of other recruitment and some players have expressed interest, I'll see how many of them decide to show up, create characters and play.

You've got time to determine what you want to play and/or you can wait to see what others are doing if you wish.

Edit: One person I've talked to is extremely interested but doesn't have a padnd account yet. He's considering either playing a bard or a magic knight or perhaps an alchemist.

[spyguy1503]

I'd love to play! What deity is most closely aligned with the Empire? I'd want to play as a Inquisitor of them, if possible.

[Haahque]

The empire's kind of created a "good list" and a "bad list" of deities and doesn't exactly follow any one in particular. You're likely to find any of the lawful gods (Erastil, Lomedae, Torag, Abadar, Irori, Asmodeus, Zon-Kuthon) worshiped openly in the empire, as well as a few of the neutral good or neutral gods (Sarenrae, Shelyn, Pharasma, Nethys). Pantheons/gods usually don't play a huge role in my campaigns, but I'm open to having very devout characters and who knows, I might throw in a few NPC's to play off a pantheon or two.

Anyways, sounds good.

[Just_Ice]

Count me in as well. I'm strongly leaning caster, either sorcerer or witch- which is a bit out of my element but should be interesting.
Also kinda looking into rogue multiclass.

So, does it make sense to read up on exile?

[Haahque]

Welcome Just_ice.

You can read up on Exile if you want, but no reading of this type is required.

On one hand I kind of implemented "standard D&D" lore into the world of exile with the scenario I made that this is based off of, on the other hand I also tried to work some exile lore/flavor into the scenario so it'll probably be a mix.

Which means I should probably allow nephilim (cat folk) and slithzerikai (lizardmen) characters as well (The three player-races allowed in those games were human, nephilim and slithzerikai).

If people are interested in either of those races, I'll just make up some racial stats for them that reflect exile.

[mgbevan]

I'm tempted by this but am a little apprehensive because I have zero pathfinder or 3.5 or 3 experience. In fact my only rpg experience has been war of the lance and the dragon age module.

So in summary I'm keen to try something new but if it's going to hold back an advanced group then I don't mind passing on this one

[Haahque]

Well the slots sure are filling up quickly. If everyone I talked to who showed interest decided to show up and make a character the party would be full, but perhaps if that happens I might expand the allowed players to 7 or 8 to make sure everyone's included, I mostly chose 6 since that's the party size in Exile.

I'm not some sort of elitist who will only take veteran players into my campaign, nor, I imagine, is anyone who's joined/going to join. However, it seems likely that everyone else will have had some experience with 3.5/pathfinder. If you're willing to learn the rules I'd be willing to have you.

[HorizonsDream]

Well, I guess I'll go ahead and join. I'm not really sure what I want to play just yet, but I'm sure I can figure out something.

[Haahque]

Ok welcome.

[JadedDM]

Horizon and I decided we're going to go with Human Fighter and Human Rogue, respectively. It's an old battle couple we've played before, and it might be fun to bring them back.

[JadedDM]

By the way, if you can think up a description for your sub-forum, I'll go ahead and set it up. Then you can put up an OOC thread and we needn't clutter up the recruitment thread.