OOC: The Quest of the Missing Quill

[Haahque]

Use this thread for all sorts of out of character chat.

[JadedDM]

I managed to acquire a copy of the Pathfinder Core Rulebook, which I assume is all I really need? (I've actually wanted to try Pathfinder for some time now, maybe I'll learn enough in this game to run my own someday). Anyway, helped Horizon pick out her feats for her first two levels and managed to explain some of the more important differences between 2E and 3E/PF to her. I'm hoping to get started on my own character pretty soon, as well.

[HorizonsDream]

I know you said that you won't start the game until the end of June. I assume you want the characters in before you take your vacation, though, right?

[Haahque]

Having the characters in before I start the game is the requirement, other then that it's "the sooner you can do it the better".

[JadedDM]

I'll start with my character's flavor first, before the mechanics, since I already know that part.

My character is Gaheris Argent, a human rogue. On the battlefield, he's an archer, but out of combat, he's designed more as the party face and skill monkey.

Gaheris was born in a big city and grew up as a street urchin. His parents were miners who worked hard to keep their family fed and clothed, but both were killed in a cave-in, and little Gaheris was left to fend for himself. If there was one lesson he picked up as he struggled to feed himself each day, it was that life was unfair. The system was broken; it was designed by those in power to keep themselves in power. If you weren't lucky enough to be born into wealth and power, then you were pretty much screwed. Despite this, Gaheris became obsessed with climbing to the top anyway. He wants a title, he wants land, he wants a castle with a vault full of gold, he wants servants and a harem and fine clothes and to feast like a king each night. He wants people to admire and respect and even fear him.

Thus his dilemma. If the system is biased against him, how can he ever hope to accomplish this? The answer, of course, was adventuring. Adventuring was incredibly dangerous, but extremely profitable. He often saw nobodies--farmhands, serving girls, cobblers and smiths--become rich and famous practically overnight. Many would even be granted titles and land if they were successful enough. Rescue a few nobles from certain death, and they'll even consent to raise you up to their level, it would seem.

Problem was the Empire was so stable that there wasn't really much need for adventuring. So he packed up and moved to the outskirts with the hope of putting together a crack team of like-minded individuals, making a metric ton of coin and retiring in wealth and prestige, just like he always dreamed.

His relationship with Horizon's character is...complicated. They are on-again, off-again lovers, partners and old friends. They've worked together for years (I will go ahead and assume that whatever he did to reach level 2 was probably done with her). They compliment each other well, both in and out of battle.

There's a bit more to it than that, but that's the basic gist of him. I made some slight modifications for the setting, and I may need to make more. I'll start work on his mechanical aspects next. I once recreated him in DDO, so I know a little bit about good archer feats, at least.

[Haahque]

Ok, looks good so far, I put up a partial character stats post on the PC's thread for you.

If you'd like to take an archetype that's OK, just tell me and I'll adjust any stats needed.

Yep, playing DDO will help you optimize your character, even if you don't get all the tools you get in DDO, such as +20 free HP and those mini level ups.

[JadedDM]

An archetype is akin to a kit, if I'm reading this right? Hmm, I'll think about it. I might want to keep things simple, though.

Height 5'10", Weight 152 lbs, Age 24

For his ability scores, I was thinking this:

STR 10, DEX 16 (+2 human), CON 10, INT 12, WIS 10, CHA 13

This is actually really close to his original 2E stats. But I wanted a focus in DEX (for archery and rogue skills), INT (for more skill points) and CHA (to boost diplomacy, bluff and so forth). He gets an extra point at 4th level, right? I'll probably put it in CHA, making it an even 14 when the time comes.

Now if I'm reading this right (and by all means, correct me if I'm wrong), his STR, CON and WIS are all average with no modifiers. His INT of 12 will give him one extra language in addition to Common (I assume Common is the national language of the Empire?) and an extra skill point each level.

His CHA of 13 will grant him a +1 to Bluff, Diplomacy, Disguise, Handle Animal, Intimidate, Perform, and Use Magic Device checks. When it hits 14, that will become a +2.

His DEX of 18 will give him a +4 to ranged attacks, armor class, reflex saves, and any Acrobatics, Disable Device, Escape Artist, Fly, Ride, Sleight of Hand, and Stealth checks.

Plus, being human means he gets one extra feat and one extra skill point, yes?

Assuming all that is true, I think this is the ability score lineup I'll go with, unless anyone has any suggestions as to why this is a bad idea.

[Haahque]

The short answer to your post above is essentially yes.

An archetype is essentially the same thing as a kit from 2e, although the small experience I've had with kits make them sound like they change slightly less about the class then an archetype often does.

The stat array looks good.

Stats do what you said they do. You do get +1 to a stat at level 4.

Human does give an extra skill per level and an extra feat, that's why I stated that you have 18+2*Int skills (each level is 8 +1 human + int mod), 2 levels. And 2 feats (1 for human, 1 for level 1).

I'll update your character's stats with those you mentioned above now.

[JadedDM]

I was thinking of taking Goblin for my second language.

As for skills, I was thinking this:

Acrobatics - 1 rank
Appraising - 2 ranks
Sleight of Hand - 2 ranks
Knowledge (Local) - 1 rank
Bluff - 2 ranks
Climb - 1 rank
Diplomacy - 3 ranks
Disable Device - 1 rank
Perception - 2 ranks
Sense Motive - 2 ranks
Stealth - 2 ranks
UMD - 1 rank

[Haahque]

This looks good except that the maximum number of ranks you can put in any one skill is your level, therefore you can only have 2 ranks in diplomacy right now.

So to finish up your character I need:
1 more skill rank (since it can't be in Diplomacy)
A choice of either 1d8 or 5 HP
2 feat choices
1 rogue talent choice
2 favored class bonus choices (As a human rogue the choice for each level is: +1 HP, +1 Skill point or +1/6 of a rogue talent)
Spend your gold on starting equipment.

[Haahque]

As I had stated before this campaign will be based off of a scenario I created for Blades of Exile a long time ago (and nearly finished). So today I was looking through some old notes to see if I could find the ones I wrote for this scenario (I kept a lot of notes around that time) and sure enough I found them! These notes have some important information for the main quests I created, a few side quests, a few notes on some NPC's and a whole bunch of editor related things (what flags are used for what, what are the town ID's of each town, dialog trees for NPC's, etc).

Amongst these notes I found a short scenario description/teaser text that I thought I'd share:

Being near orc territory you can expect to find a missing meal, missing gold, missing house, missing friend or a missing life. But a missing quill?

[JadedDM]

...except that the maximum number of ranks you can put in any one skill is your level, therefore you can only have 2 ranks in diplomacy right now.

Ah, crap. Forgot about that rule. Alright, let's put that last point into Escape Artist instead then.

For HP, I'll play it safe and say go with the 5.

The favored classes bonuses--I'll put one into an extra skill point (which I'll put into Knoweldge (Local)) and the other one will be a +1 to HP.

For my feats, I'll go with Point Blank Shot and Precise Shot. If I understand these correctly, they'll let give me a bonus when shooting at point blank range and let me shoot into melee without worrying so much about hitting an ally.

Then for my rogue talent, I'll take Weapon Training, which gives me the Weapon Focus feat for free. I'll put that toward the bow.

So if I shoot someone with my bow, that's +1 for BAB, +4 for DEX and +1 for weapon focus--and another +1 if the target is within 30 feet--so either a +6 or +7 to hit, right?

I think that's everything but equipment now.

[Haahque]

Ok, looks good.

[Haahque]

A friend notified me that Pathfinder had class variants for rogue, monk, barbarian and summoner that were supposedly more balanced and fit the flavor of the class better then the originally released classes. You can find the rogue here: http://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/unchain ... -unchained

If you wish to use this version of the rogue the only difference would be that you would get weapon finesse as a bonus feat (can use Dex instead of Str to hit with some melee weapons.) So not a big difference, but you would gain more bonuses at higher levels as well, and I hear that they made some of the rogue talents more powerful.

In other news, I also noticed they had some more balanced rules for BAB and Saves for multiclass characters, essentially by not rounding fractions until all classes are calculated and by not giving level 1 good save bonuses multiple times. I've decided to use these rules, which for our only multiclass character right now means a change of +1 BAB and -1 Will save.

[Just_Ice]

Hadn't finished up skills and equipment, thought I'd go ahead and do that.


SKILL RANKS
Acrobatics: 2
Bluff 1
Disguise 1
Escape Artist 1
Knowledge (all) 2
Perception 1
Performance (singing) 2
Performance (String) 1
Performance (Percussion) 1
Spellcraft 1
Stealth 1
Use Magic Device 1


EQUIPMENT

Leather Armor (10 gp)
20 bolts (2 gp)
Cards + dice (1 gp?)
Common lute (5 gp, 3 lbs)
Common drum (5 gp, 3 lbs)
Journal (10 gp)
Ink/Inkpen (8 gp)
Paper (1 gp worth)
Twine
Torch
5 trail rations
Cheese
Bread
Chocolate (5 gp)

(This costs something like 48 gold)