Character discussion

[Alex]

I had already put in the modifiers, but if I've 2 points to play with, stick them on Constitution, I suppose.

[Mr Teufel]

Put mine in Con, too. Ah, teh intarnets, so easy to misunderstand humour. We should probably make more use of smileys, (except for those stupid "8)")  :icon_razz:

Oh, I emailed  you a full version of my character. I forgot to put a note that the background is provisional - if you don't want him to have had quite so dramatic a past, let me know. I'm happy to talk about it. The gameworld is yours, I'm just playing in it.

[Balgin Stondraeg]

Okay, I've started character sheet threads which will get updated a lot over the next few days :). For now I'm going to read back through this thread for stuff I might've missed :).

I've had a bit of a think, and I'd like one of you rogueish types to maybe have some sort of common background with my space-cadet type wizard. I picture him needing someone with a bit of charisma to explain to the nice innkeeper why he no longer has a roof on the guest bedroom, or gently remind him that now perhaps isn't a good time to get a sketch of the mechanism of action of a dragon's wings, and that running like hell is a better use of time. That sort of thing. Someone who'll remind him that it's easier to do things the simple way, like just manually buttering bread, instead of trying to come up with a gadget to do it.

That works :).

Subject to Balgin's approval, of course: I was thinking that one of my fighter levels and two rogue levels might have come from getting involved as a heavy in a criminal gang as a youngster, and then a second fighter level from some kind of compulsory military service given to me as punishment when I was caught.  Of course, now, I've straightened out ... mostly.

:shrug: Dunno, too cheesy?  What do you think?

Military service isn't that common in Drechanon (no standing army, they hire mecenaries to perform the role) but I'd imagine military service is quite common in Sard and Elkia, maybe he hails from thsoe climes, lost favour (somehow), maybe even got chucked out the army for misbehaving and ended up working as blade for hire in Drechanon to earn his coin. Does that work for you?

Let's say that Keeper's character came across mine during his time in the service- my character, Panorrecci (he's a gnome, there are plenty more where that came from), was incarcerated in some keep he was besieging. Maybe they were trying to force him into designing WMDs, or whatever. Keeper's dude is the first through the door into the lab, and manages to convince Panorrecci to turn against his 'captors' (he hadn't really noticed he was imprisoned, just that the man who had been bothering him regularly was more than a little rude).

After that, Panorrecci starts tagging along with [Keeper], who's managed to keep him mostly out of trouble, saving his life on more than one occasion. In return, the spells and gismo's that Panorrecci is constantly working on have proven very useful. It was at [Keeper's] suggestion that Panorrecci came up with the large backpack contraption (the patent-pending Panorrecci original spellcaster's EZ-reach equipment holder with built-in adventuring gear storage and retrieval apparatus) that he constantly wears, giving him easy access to his gadgets (spell components) though, like all of Panorrecci's posessions, it bears little resemblance to its original form.

When [Keeper] is discharged from the service, Panorrecci follows his friend into civilian life, where they soon come across [Teufel] and take up the adventuring life as a way of making money (or field-testing new ideas)

Of course, I don't want to take the fun of backstory writing from you, so feel free to modify this to fit your own

Maybe not discharged from service (due to the lack of s atdning army in Drechanon). If this all happened in Sard (greedily trying to regain their lost empire, Elkia doesn't seem to mind it's new situation but Sard does) then that's fine.

However, there's a bit of a recession in Drechanon so there's a lot of cutbacks. If Keeper's character, Raoul, was working as a soldier in Drechanon then he could've been laid off for financial reasons "you know, cutbacks, that sort of thing - anyway, there's you're leaving pay lad, don't spend it all in one place what what?"

So it could have been then that he'd discovered Ivor the Engine (how welsh does that sound? :p). Alternatively, he could've discovered Ivor whilst serving as a mercenary and investigating the ruins of an old Sardellian military outpost in southern Drechanon (they did invade them in the past, remember), long thought abandoned. There he could have discovered men of Sard geared for war and guarding their captive gnome, who, when freed, sort of adopted Raoul and stuck with him through thick and thin untill the "army" (officers) of Drechanon couldn't afford to feed them both and paid him off with a small commendation for his services ('though nowhere near large enough for his actual achievements).

[Mr Teufel]

I'm happy to share youthful indiscretions with Keeper. Um, not like that.  :icon_twisted:

And I get the impression that Keeper's character may be playing it safer, but still looking for the main chance. In which case a clueless gnome wizard might be seen as an opportunity as much as a burden. Kiaphas (that's my character) might hang on to make sure that Keeper doesn't take too much advantage, as well as for old time's sake. And even for prophets of the sea god, it can be dangerous wandering around on your own.  :icon_smile:

(And I too should hold off before getting crotchety, and remind myself it's pretty late (here in Oz) when we seem to get together most.)  :icon_wink:

[Balgin Stondraeg]

Well, if you're going Bard/stabby/stabby, why not just take the stabby levels in the same class?

Remember that episode of Order of the Stick where they first meet Elan's evil twin brother who boats about how he's a rogue/fighter/wizard and it's actualy Elan who goes "shouldn't you have just been a bard and then you'd be just the same but better without the weaknesses of multiclassing?" Sorry, it just tickled a memory guys :).

you can wear light armour without messing up spellcasting anyway.

And you could even take the armour caster feat (battlecaster?) to up that to medium armour (and then take it again for heavy) if you liked.

Okay folks, so if everyone who's multiclassing - everyone exept the gnome, right - would let me know which class their taking at 1st level (for the quadruple skill points) then we can get started on skills.

[Mr Teufel]

Yeah, reminded me of that too. :icon_twisted:

[Balgin Stondraeg]

Kiaphas, that's one of the rabbi's who turned Jesus over to the romans, right?

[Keeper]

Subject to Balgin's approval, of course: I was thinking that one of my fighter levels and two rogue levels might have come from getting involved as a heavy in a criminal gang as a youngster, and then a second fighter level from some kind of compulsory military service given to me as punishment when I was caught.  Of course, now, I've straightened out ... mostly.

:shrug: Dunno, too cheesy?  What do you think?

Military service isn't that common in Drechanon (no standing army, they hire mecenaries to perform the role) but I'd imagine military service is quite common in Sard and Elkia, maybe he hails from thsoe climes, lost favour (somehow), maybe even got chucked out the army for misbehaving and ended up working as blade for hire in Drechanon to earn his coin. Does that work for you?

Let's say that Keeper's character came across mine during his time in the service- my character, Panorrecci (he's a gnome, there are plenty more where that came from), was incarcerated in some keep he was besieging. Maybe they were trying to force him into designing WMDs, or whatever. Keeper's dude is the first through the door into the lab, and manages to convince Panorrecci to turn against his 'captors' (he hadn't really noticed he was imprisoned, just that the man who had been bothering him regularly was more than a little rude).

After that, Panorrecci starts tagging along with [Keeper], who's managed to keep him mostly out of trouble, saving his life on more than one occasion. In return, the spells and gismo's that Panorrecci is constantly working on have proven very useful. It was at [Keeper's] suggestion that Panorrecci came up with the large backpack contraption (the patent-pending Panorrecci original spellcaster's EZ-reach equipment holder with built-in adventuring gear storage and retrieval apparatus) that he constantly wears, giving him easy access to his gadgets (spell components) though, like all of Panorrecci's posessions, it bears little resemblance to its original form.

When [Keeper] is discharged from the service, Panorrecci follows his friend into civilian life, where they soon come across [Teufel] and take up the adventuring life as a way of making money (or field-testing new ideas)

Of course, I don't want to take the fun of backstory writing from you, so feel free to modify this to fit your own

Maybe not discharged from service (due to the lack of s atdning army in Drechanon). If this all happened in Sard (greedily trying to regain their lost empire, Elkia doesn't seem to mind it's new situation but Sard does) then that's fine.

However, there's a bit of a recession in Drechanon so there's a lot of cutbacks. If Keeper's character, Raoul, was working as a soldier in Drechanon then he could've been laid off for financial reasons "you know, cutbacks, that sort of thing - anyway, there's you're leaving pay lad, don't spend it all in one place what what?"

So it could have been then that he'd discovered Ivor the Engine (how welsh does that sound? :p). Alternatively, he could've discovered Ivor whilst serving as a mercenary and investigating the ruins of an old Sardellian military outpost in southern Drechanon (they did invade them in the past, remember), long thought abandoned. There he could have discovered men of Sard geared for war and guarding their captive gnome, who, when freed, sort of adopted Raoul and stuck with him through thick and thin untill the "army" (officers) of Drechanon couldn't afford to feed them both and paid him off with a small commendation for his services ('though nowhere near large enough for his actual achievements).

Sardian(?) soldier sounds good to me :)  I'll write it up properly in my character thread tomorrow.

[Mr Teufel]

Kiaphas, that's one of the rabbi's who turned Jesus over to the romans, right?

Yep. I just like the name. Sounds Olde Testamenty (even tho I know it's technically New Testament, he was an ancient historical rabbi). And it's not riffing on a real prophet, so hopefully not hurting anyone's feelings.

But if you don't like it, I'm open. Wouldn't want a bloke called Fred in a background where "Frederich" was never a name, so I can see it might not fit your concept of the background.

[Alex]

Sounds good to me.

I'll try to work out some more background for Ivor the Engineer and write it up all pretty-like in the near future.

[Balgin Stondraeg]

Kiaphas works well with the seeming mediteranean feel of the inland sea. It also seems to suit his prophetic preacher kind of personality as well. I only asked to see if my memory was good :).

We once ahd a player who always played a fighter/monk/wizard. However, the first 3 levels would be a 2/1 split between fighter and monk then he'd just blatantly go wizard and abandon his former classes completely (just using them as free proficiencies and armour to put on after he'd cast all his extended boosting spells).

Every character he played for about six years was a bloody carbon copy and he'd always come up with really BS pathetic exuses (he called them cool backgrounds) as for why his character would suddenly have learned the kind of magic that takes years of study and be a leet pk damage machine.

To point out how rediculous it was I came up with a joke class combination and made up a pathetic exuse for it and everyone started praising me on my really cool background concept!

Here's a short version of it: in the cruel streets of some mean city a poor little victimised hobbit got vindictive. He hated being picked on, pushed, shoved and almost trodden on by all the big bullies. One day he discovered a helmet someone had discarded. He gathered it up and placed it in a sack (so nobody would see how valuable it was and take it away from him.

When he was alone in the gutters and backstreets of this lawless city on many a dark night he'd remove the helmet from the sack and stare at it. He could almost imagine it's voice whispering to him to put it on and be a big strong hero like in the stories he'd heard.

Eventualy greed overcame him and he donned the helmet. In doing so, he found he was able to disassociate from events (because it wasn't really him doing things, it was the helmet) and so, deluded by his belief of dissassociation, he could let all that pent up vehement fury loose on poor unsuspecting victims.

So he became a Rogue/Barbarian/Blackguard! Yeah baby! Rogue (street urchin), barbarian (more urban short tempered berserker than wild tribal plainsman) and blackguard 'cause he'd really been that evil with all the things he'd done to people (and because it was the most Bs prestige class to throw on top of the other two).

And the helmet? Just an ordinary helmet with a visor. He thought it was magical, he thought it was his lucky helmet. He never went berserk unless he was wearing it (psychological mental block) but with it on he was a right Mr Hyde villain and no mistake.....

[Mr Teufel]

Great! Glad to be seeing eye to eye on something! :)

[Mr Teufel]

People when multiclassing should remember that you can cross two classes for free. Humans can choose any two, but other races have limitations. Elf - Wizard, Gnome - bard, Dwarf - fighter. If you cross to a third class, or if you're non-human and choose 2+ classes not associated with your race, you get XP penalties.


Anyhoo, that's me for tonight, it's nearly half past 3am on this side of the planet, so I'm off to bed. Catch ya later.

[Fabian]

The Str v Con thing - I have a friend who's a body builder with incredible health problems; he can break the gym machines but a common cold knocks him out for weeks.

Anyway... I'm going to keep my exact combo of classes a secret except for Balgy; the fun of guessing! And yes, Nale kept popping into my head too as the man who took all that multi-classing!  :icon_cool: (and Teufel, no love for this smiley? I like him. You know that every time you diss a smiley, one of them dies?)

You only get the XP penalties when one of your non-favoured classes is more than 1 level higher, don't you? I don't think you automatically get whacked with them as soon as you choose a 3rd class...

EDIT: On second thoughts, I'll spill the beans with my PC in the character thread.

[Balgin Stondraeg]

You only get the XP penalties when one of your non-favoured classes is more than 1 level higher, don't you?

Yes.

From Balgin's hints, it doesn't sound too combat-heavy, but I may have picked him up wrong.

I't not combat heavy but some of the later battles can be very tough (especialy the optional CR 12 encounter near the end, oh yeah...... if you live that long, let's hope that you do).

I can honestly say that, after a small voyage, the adventure will start to develope a bit of a FOD/Heresy feel but it might not maintain it (that's probably given too much away already :().

I might have to step in and have  aword about some of the incredibly pretentious italian/spanish names but basicaly you can expect a lot of npc's to go "you're not from round 'ere are you?" or "you're parents wurr forrin innit?" :p

Fianly got Fabian's first draught through.

Now I really want to see someone play a bard who's bardic performance is mime (I'd love to see what a mime's countersong would look like, he somehow cancels out the other bard's effects by simply being really good and standing still and ignoring it or something :)).