TheFred

Aeos, Psychosurgeon
DUR: 0/30, LUC: 0/30, Wounds: 0, Traumas: 0
Pools: Insight 4/4, Moxie 6/6, Vigour 1/1, Flex 2/2

Aeos frown. The news about Null's situation is just that - news. Was this related to whatever strange phenomenon is to be found at the bottom of that mine shaft? It seemed like those shafts could be a back way into the complex's working area - but now they seem like more of a hazard than anything.

"How peculiar," they say. Of course there's no need to give away the link between the agents, but Aeos aren't lying as they add: "Unfortunately we didn't know them well at all - in fact we only just met. We explored a little of the complex with some colleagues, but they didn't talk much. They seemed... reserved... but nothing to indicate any mental illness."

Wolfweres are, in fact, Magical Beasts (with the Shapechanger subtype), seeing as they are wolves that turn into humans not the other way around. This much everyone knows (by now); the guard at the mines was an archer in humanoid form who then transformed.

They were tough, though note that at the time with was just Eustice, Kassandra and a bunch of L1 Human Peasants. They're only around CR4 each I reckon, maybe 5 at a push, but they have a decent bit of HP and some DR. Really though neither Eustice nor Kassandra are great at dealing damage - that's not a criticism, both are casters with less blasting and more utility, Kassandra has sky-high defences and Eustice put in some work with his Reserve feats but they are about staying power not burst so it takes some time to take anything tougher down with those.

Only cold iron weapons are effective against Wolfweres; the villagers offered cold iron equipment so if you want to add any ammunition or whatever to your sheets you can all do that - but it's all basic equipment, no magic weapons or anything.

Note: drawing a weapon is a move action rather than a swift action, but with a BAB of +1 or higher (which everyone here has), you can also do it as part of a move.

The trees are represented as green blobs but actually the trunks are much smaller. They don't obstruct movement. I literally only today learned what the rules for trees are: if you're in the same space as a tree, you get partial cover - a +2 AC and +1 Reflex (see here - though this actually dates back to the 3.5 DMG). However, I think the tree in your space doesn't grant anyone else any benefits.

This also reminds me that I haven't put any undergrowth on the map. Probably a lot of that bottom left is undergrowth, but let's say not so far out as Jen wants to be. Also the hillside is undergrowthy, as well as being a steep slope - the rest of the crew might be able to climb down but it's not an easy descent.

Bianca Pohlo

Dihana's words give Bianca pause. Of course, most of this group are just mercenaries, and don't seem to mind pilfering the odd item along the way. She makes sure to stash the wand and scroll carefully in her own bag before following after.

I did want to ask for a clarification on that, actually, but I agree - "action" really means like, standard action, move action... if we're meaning between each attack, great, but then that also means that TWFers or anyone who otherwise gets more attacks gets to move a lot further - up to the limit, of course (which makes the 9-attack Sahuagin or my 10 attacks look even more impressive). Cleave of course specifically says that you can't move, but perhaps the houserules override that too?

And, if I'm >5ft from someone, can I 5ft step, "attack" the air, 5ft step again to get into range but still get the rest of my ull-attack?

Oh right, sorry. There are still threads I haven't copied over.

That said, we haven't learned an awful lot so far. Of course, a Knowledge check would signify that your character already has some understanding of them.

Yep it's you guys to act but I appreciate it's harder without a map. There's a first pass at one - there would probably be more trees realistically and I'm not sure I've quite captured what I had in my imagination but it's probably close enough.

Shenoah can finally join in here - I put her on the map but she can be anywhere nearby, really.

It’s a bit of a weird thing for PCs because it’s not entirely clear if the LA should stay the same (for dragons for example it increases)… but normally, aside from size increases, HD are so bad that if anything it ought to lower your LA.

59 minutes ago, dalamb said:

I will rephrase to have it increase Shield Bonus without regard to where that bonus comes from.

Which shield are we specialising in here, if we’re not using one? Kinda seems like TWF is fine here (it can use a boost in 3.5, but these houserules already give it that), and shields still suck.

Honestly, it’s like 2/3 of the way through the ad period now, perhaps it’s best not to throw in yet more changes to the rules? There are definitely things that I personally would still change and I’ve given some thoughts and feedback on that but dalamb has plenty of questions about existing things to look at, maybe we don’t need all the “hey wouldn’t it be cool if also Rogues at some level got a bonus to something whilst wearing a hat?” stuff as well? 🙂

They'd have 100ft range, but at range increment penalties. It's not half bad, but I could also just cast Glitterdust or something and position for next turn. Might be one for a wand, though.

Eh, not really, I could get it but it's not that big a deal. Blood Wind gives you a 20ft range increment which is great and all, but I already have 20ft reach. Some kind of swift-action movement would help a lot but worst case I can just cast a spell, then move.

Spare/questions

Mechanics

Character Sheet (work in progress)

Cora is a Tauric Giant Octopus; this is not the best-written template and it's not entirely clear what the LA is meant to be, but the 3.5 Update Booklet for the MM2 puts it at +3 LA which is what I've gone with (Savage Species appears to be saying +2 which has always seemed OK to me - it's more on a par with Lycanthrope - but I'm assuming +3). This gives her, in addition to some pretty chunky physical stats, a whopping eight tentacles each with 20ft reach and improved grab. On the other hand, it's not cheap - as well as the +3 LA I've got to take 9 monstrous humanoid HD which aren't the worst HD, but they're still taking up one of my gestalt class options for all nine levels.

Combat-wise, this means a lot of attacks and so a lot of raw damage, but also pretty potent lockdown (Combat Reflexes + 20ft reach with grapple) and grappling power (using Multigrab, she can grapple and constrict eight people at once!). A lack of ranged options is a bit of a weakness, but with 20ft reach (and Swift Fly), who needs range anyway?

Being a Bard probably isn't the mechanically-strongest way to capitalise on being a Tauric Giant Octopus, but it seemed more fun. It does give her Inspire Courage (but she won't be focusing on that) and a couple of worthwhile spells (Fearsome Grapple, via Lyric Thaumaturge, for example, and of course Haste). Mostly though this is more a diversification than anything, with options like Charm Person and Glibness offering some social utility.

Tauric Octopus brings with it a couple of weird rules questions, but nothing that's critical to the character.

Cora Kaluuya

Octopus Bard

If there is one thing that Cora has always loved, it's tales of adventure and the high seas.

There wasn't an awful lot to do in Cora's village and her one diversion was Uncle Thaddeus' stories of the world beyond. He told her of brave merfolk adventurers who scoured the depths of the ocean hunting mythical beasts or searching hidden treasure, and gallant human pioneers who sailed the seas in search of new lands. And, of course, pirates! Pirates like Steel-Eyed Jake, who once killed a kraken, and Long Jim Gold, with a peg hand and a hook for a foot... not to mention, the most fearsome of them all, old Bill Spatch - the dreaded Brownbeard!

Sometimes, Uncle Thaddeus would take Cora to the human village on the nearby shore to trade. Her folk usually kept clear of the land-dwellers, but here humans, merfolk, elves, dwarves, and octopeople all gathered and mingled - at least, cautiously, and often at a distance. In the evenings, though, Cora would sometimes sneak close to the fire (marvelling at its light and heat) and listen to the humans reciting ballads and sharing stories.

And always, Cora wished that she could leave her tiny life behind and, like these heroes and villains of legend, set out in search of adventure. She wanted to explore, to discover - and most of all, to sail the high seas! Why, her family asked, would you want to sail when you can swim? But they didn't understand. To stand amidst the stern, with the wind in your hair, gazing across the horizon and into the sunset - she could think of nothing more splendid!

Appearance

With a shock of bright blue hair spilling messily from her head, framing a quirky, inquisitive face, Cora can't help draw attention. She's pretty - but in a homely, tomboyish, mer-girl-next-door kind of way, seeming only to take the minimum amount of care over her appearance but still managing to avoid looking scruffy. She doesn't much like fancy clothes but does have her own style, particularly favouring things she considers to be suitably "pirate-y", like bicorne hats, fancy belt-buckles, and other assorted accoutrements. Beneath all this, she does have quite an athletic build, with a wiry upper-body strength and very long legs.

Some landlubbers have never seen a merfolk before and, for them, Cora's people are even stranger. Like their underwater kin, they have a humanoid appearance from the waist up, looking rather like aquatic elves - but instead of dolphin tails in place of humanoid legs, they have tentacles like those of an octopus. This makes it far easier to get around on land - even if the roiling motion is a little strange to the eyes of the land-dwellers - and has the advantage that the prehensile limbs can be used to grab and manipulate things.

Personality

Cora's attitude is an idealistic, happy-go-lucky one that borders on the quixotic; she has an unflappably romantic view of life on the high seas and what it means to be a pirate.

I did misremember, the ability functions as a CL4 Polymorph so you can only turn into 4-HD animals and vermin - that's really limiting actually. Perhaps dalamb will allow it to progress with HD - that's very much a houserule, but I suppose the HD are pretty bad otherwise.

All that said... Fleshrakers have only 4 HD and, let's be honest, you want to turn into a dinosaur.

Out of curiosity... why 5 HD? Grimalkins only have 4 by default and advancing by one I don't think really gives you anything? Unless you're getting better shapeshifting or a size boost (and actually without the Large forms the size boost seems like a waste when you're a shapeshifter) racial HD tend not to give you anything really.

Yeah Warshaper is pretty great here. With the 3.5 update, the Grimalkin, whilst cool (one of my favourite races honestly), really gets very limited shapeshifting options. You can do like the Legendary animals from MM2 if I recall, and you can switch between flying/swimming/pouncing/grappling animals rapidly, but it's a far cry from Polymorph's usually versatility (some might say brokenness, even), and it's hard to juggle all the options anyway. Warshaper's one of the few ways to up the effectiveness of the shapeshifting specifically.

"Quim!" Nancy exclaims, a mixture of surprise and perhaps a little anger showing, as Quim rushes off of his own accord. "By the gods..."

Not quite as quick off the mark as Vanaan, but not far behind, Nancy rushes after the young lad. Already her heart is racing, and even though there is only one guard present, she can feel that mix of excitement and fear that always accompanies battle. And what if there are more? Quim's attempt at silencing the guard has backfired; surely someone must have heard that cry?

"Quim, varash għax!" She cries in annoyance. "Furthog tash-kek azzag!"

Looking to the south, Nancy calls upon her powers once again to conjure a field of twisted terrain. The rocks seem to break and crack, filling the area with loose scree and jagged boulders even as the dark-dwelling mosses and lichens sprout into slimy abundance.

8 hours ago, Thramzorean said:

If there was one thing Pathfinder got wrong it was the fighter. Really missed an opportunity there. Tried to address a bit in 2E with the increased proficiency.

Yeah, there definitely wasn't only one thing, but the Fighter was certainly one of them...

7 hours ago, Steel Warrior said:

3.x fighter vs PF Fighter there's a lot more going on. Still not as good as other classes when it comes to unique abilities though.
Arguably they stayed fairly true to the 3.x fighter.
Armor Training (Ex), Bravery, Weapon training, Advanced Weapon Training and Weapon Mastery on top of the same number of fighter feats that 3.5 got.
3.x fighter ACF's helped, and PF made it mainstream with archetypes.

Definitely don't want this to devolve into an edition war... but I disagree. PF added a fat load of nothing to the Fighter - it's only when they later added the Advanced Weapon and Armour Trainings that we finally started to get something remotely interesting. Bravery et al is pretty terrible, and whilst Weapon Training is a non-negligible boost, attack and damage bonuses are the things martials needed the least. Whilst the PF Fighter is definitely a notch up in terms of power, I'd almost rather have access to 3.5's ACFs. It's a prime example of Paizo not actually understanding what was wrong with 3.x's mechanics.

Then, to make matters worse, there are all the stealth nerfs. A 3.5 Fighter can get Combat Expertise and Improved Trip at L1 (even without being a Human); in PF, Improved Trip is only half of 3.5's Improved Trip and doesn't get good until you get Greater Trip at L6 (and it costs an extra feat!).

5 hours ago, Steel Warrior said:

Also Fighters would be better if they could spend 1 hour meditation a day, to retrain combat feats.

Fighters would be better if they got triple feats and glowed in the dark. Yeah sure, obviously they would. In all seriousness, though, some sort of dynamic feat option would really help. This is what PF Brawlers get, and it's only not amazing because it's kinda slow and limited and because PF's feat chains are so mind-bogglingly silly. Fighters could really have done with something like that from the get-go.

As much as martials need love, dealing damage (as Str-based two-handlers) is the one thing they’re fine at.

Interestingly, though, I think this does remove the Str requirement from PA? That potentially helps a small number of Dex-based characters a tiny bit.

I think Pathfinder messed with Cleave to remove another option from Fighters. Why let them do an OK thing after spending only one feat at it, when you could make it part of a long chain?

In all seriousness, whilst something like Binder would work well here, Warlock is pretty much the classic Disney villain. Even all the crackling energy bolts they tend to employ can be represented with good old Eldritch Blast.

"Are you able to communicate with it?" Molgrug asks, looking from Nizell to Carmine. "Alas, my own telepathic abilities feel somewhat fuzzy after our ordeal and I cannot make out anything coherent. It reminds me of that time I took a trip to Pandemonium with a yagaloth called Gozo. His problem, you see, was that he wasn't at all prepared for the trip. Well, that wasn't his only problem. He also had terrible bunions. I said to him: if that's your problem, you should soak your feet for twenty-five to thirty-five minutes in a nice warm solution made by mixing saltpetre, blue vitriol, and a little alum - does wonders for exfoliation, I always find!"

Did we say to move Telepathy down to L2 by the way? Mine is still at L11. L11 will have an odd gap if I move it might you so I might end up redoing the whole thing... 😕

4 hours ago, dalamb said:

I used to have spellcaster nerfs in my house rules, but I decided I liked a system where you could build a completely standard spellcaster, but other people got boosts that spellcasters could get less of. I know some people have expressed sentiments roughly like "spellcasters are nerfed under these rules" but the way I look at it, that's only true because people think spellcasters ought to dominate.

Well, everything's relative. If you're the only one not getting buffs then, effectively, you are getting nerfed. This certainly feels less punitive, though.

4 hours ago, dalamb said:

That requires a house rule that "always chaotic evil" (and "always alignment X" in general) goes away. One GM did let me get away with an "almost chaotic neutral" succubus character in some gestalt game or other, but I did feel that was sort of cheesy.

In general I'm a fan of doing away with the racial alignments thing, something which amounts to a weird kind of fantasy racism that generally feels pretty unhealthy. So Drow must be evil because they are born that way? Sounds wrong to me. However, demons and devils are creatures that embody the primal forces of evil; they're not just "always evil" they have the evil subtype and are fluffed as essentially being made of the stuff, at least insofar as anyone can be made of a thing that's essentially just a concept. It's always felt like a bit of a cop-out to me to say "oh, hey, my Succubus just grew a conscience one day, no big deal". No reason why it oughtn't be possible (Helms of chessiness notwithstanding, angels can fall to evil, why not demons do the opposite?) but it seems like a very big deal and in need of some explanation.

But anyway, I digress. Again.

Oh, you mean the Sylph. Yeah, you’d be theoretically entitled to L6 spells or whatever but the CP costs limit it.