Vaden Blackhand, Human/Dromaar/Half Orc, Rogue/Thief Racket, Sword Sion Background

[illusionoforder]

My final character revision is still at the original link, here (https://pathbuilder2e.com/launch.html?build=650752), I just amended the character build from the base I originally submitted.

My intent is to meld it with either the monk or fighter through the free archetype variant rule.

 

Background

Vaden's childhood family life on the outskirts of Restov were fairly stable and even modestly affluent, so despite his few recognisable Orcish physical traits, he was fairly insulated from the typical social and economic stigma that forms the day-to-day experience of most Orcs and Orc half-breeds embedded in human centric communities.

He isn't endowed with the typical muscle density common for his mixed genealogy, but instead has a highly developed sense of coordination and body agility, standing five foot eleven inches, with a compact (for someone with his racial traits) athletic build.

Having spent his formative years living in the legendary shadows cast by the mythos of the Andori Swordlords, it was only natural that the influence of the renown combatants guided his own early interests and training, and he quickly proved to have some innate talent with the iconic light duelling blade so popular among his peers.

Side by side with his martial proficiencies, he also spent time in the company of childhood friends who were less fortunate in their upbringing, and consequently were on more morally ambiguous paths than his own. While he never actively involved himself in their criminal activities, he was fascinated with the adroit sleight of hand, and of mind, tricks of their trade, which seemed to fit well with his already adept weapon agility, and much to his parent's dismay and ire, he spent almost as much time practising lock tumbler and trap trigger, shadow craft skills, as he did duelling.

Though his family’s lack of heraldry bloodline precluded him directly entering the insulator noble ranks, his skill and dedication and the modest mercantile wealth of his parent translated to enough connections for him to find practical work as a minor security adjunct, a ‘problem solver’, for those with the right prerequisite lineage to need his unusual services. Someone who could expedite solutions outside the gaze of the law, and the scrutiny of the public eye.

He did have one particular defining adversarial experience from his early professional days. A young female half elf rogue who deftly charmed her way past his already abundant cynicism and stole a number of prominent treasures from his then employer. He was subsequently removed from his position and was initially furious at the woman for the lost of work and credibility, but recovered his status quickly and came to appreciate, admire and be amused by the ease with which she was able to adroitly manoeuvre past his strengths and apply her own skills to better effect.

It was a valuable lesson for him in his youth, that sometimes there were other methods to reach a desired outcome that didn’t need to involve a bare blade, or bloodshed.

After spending more than two decades working for various socio-political factions in and around Restov, he found himself growing increasingly tired of cleaning up other people’s messes. Within a few years of coming to this personal realisation and considering other options, an opportunity presented itself seemingly a random, word of mouth passed to him news about a call to arms to purge an untamed land and claim it as a prize to be developed into a new Kingdom.

 

Perspectives

In interactions Vaden tends to be well-spoken, confident and adept, but not overly complex. He is generally approachable but does tend to lean into the sense of intimidation that many people have in response to his Orcish features, and considers it a viable method for getting the outcomes he wants. He favours the social structure and predictability of law, though tends to otherwise be fairly neutral in a personal moral context.

Vaden holds no particular God in high regard, believing instead that the Gods do as they will, with little concern for mortals, so he will return the favour, in kind.

He has a distinct dislike for creatures or people who spread chaos and destruction though their choices and behaviour, and will often consider it a personal necessity to eliminate or subdue threats to the fabric of society.

He feels a strong affinity for those that are willing to fight and sacrifice for greater ideals or a purpose in life.

 

In answer to the questions:

1) Kingdom in the background. I prefer character focused role play over broad, abstract strategy considerations.

2) Character companions works well for me, as that gives more personalised potential for role play and better adaptive exploration and resolution options. At least, I think so.

3) Standard camping rules. I did initially answer alternate rules, but I really wasn't sure how they would function in our play context, but having read a few other comments from the other potential players and looking back over the guide, I'm not sure it will really have the benefit I was thinking of (character interactions and development) and likely will just been another randomised numeric accounting system that will obfuscate the elements I am actually interested in, namely the RP and exploration.

Edited January 31 by illusionoforder
Finalising Information, Changed an Answer About Camping Rules (see edit history)

[Avaday Daydream]

1 hour ago, illusionoforder said:

I haven't yet done the Edicts and Anathema yet as I am not sure where to find the Pathfinder 2E options for that.

Edicts and Anathemas are mostly fluff; roughly the equivalent of alignment (Lawful Good, Chaotic Neutral, etc), or the tenets of a deity.

Unfortunately the PF2 SRD doesn't list deities for Golarion, but Archives of Nethys and the Pathfinder Wiki do. If you look at them, you'll see that each deity has their own edicts and anathema.
You can make up your character's own edicts/anathema if you want, basically what they think is good and what they consider wrong. Or you can just pick a racially/regionally appropriate deity (I recommend one of the Gods of the Inner Sea) and copy whatever their goods and bads are.

Edited January 27 by Avaday Daydream (see edit history)

[illusionoforder]

3 hours ago, Avaday Daydream said:

Edicts and Anathemas are mostly fluff; roughly the equivalent of alignment (Lawful Good, Chaotic Neutral, etc), or the tenets of a deity.

Unfortunately the PF2 SRD doesn't list deities for Golarion, but Archives of Nethys and the Pathfinder Wiki do. If you look at them, you'll see that each deity has their own edicts and anathema.
You can make up your character's own edicts/anathema if you want, basically what they think is good and what they consider wrong. Or you can just pick a racially/regionally appropriate deity (I recommend one of the Gods of the Inner Sea) and copy whatever their goods and bads are.

Thanks for the guidance, I'll have a look shortly and spot something out. I put a very vague background on my character sheet in the notes section, because I couldn't figure out if there was an actual section for it, but I will try and fill that out more as well, as you have asked for a few story hook details. I'm not too worried about you connecting to my character's past that much, as I figure I will have enough substance within the campaign to develop and dig into if all goes well, but I will see if I can come up with a few things at least.

A few additional notes that might be relative for you to consider in regard to my playing in your sessions, I am pretty new to TTRPGs, in the sense that I have not played a full campaign ever, and it's been a long time since I played any pen and paper stuff. That being said, I am not a novice to the fundamental concepts of current RPG systems, and the general flow of the 'mechanical' aspects, and I am a fluent creative writer, having spent a fair bit of time in real time role play for various text based social communities.

I have played a lot of CRPG systems, including the initial areas of the Pathfinder Kingmaker computer game, up to where the Kingdom Strategy elements came to the forefront, which I found tended to disconnect me too much from my character and party development. I actually wanted to replicate my favourite character from the computer game and play through with him here, but the Alchemist/Vivisectionist archetype seemed to be an advanced class type or homebrew that wasn't present in the core books, and given you set a limit of character choices from the core books, I went with rogue instead. Yes, I know the Alchemist is a class type from the core rule book, but the Vivisectionist subclass strips out the bomb stuff, that didn't really interest me and gave the class a bit of rogue flavouring to boost the damage skill options and shifts the focus back to the class unique mutagen aspect and spell buffing.

Anyway, rather than tap you about the class variant and cause potential friction from the outset, I just went with rogue.

Edited January 27 by illusionoforder
Clarification (see edit history)

[illusionoforder]

I added this to the notes area of my character sheet, but here it is as well.

Background

Vaden's childhood and family life were fairly stable and even modestly affluent, so despite his distinct Orcish physical traits, his towering height, heavy musculature and bone structure and prominent tusks, he was fairly insulated from the typical social and economic stigma that forms the day-to-day experience of most Orcs and Orc half bloods embedded in human centric communities, till he was well into his mid-teens.

By the time he was no long protected by the direct and immediate influence of his parents, his innately fearsome countenance and the reputation of his professional work were enough to stifle almost all adversarial conflicts that weren't directly the result of his employment as private 'security'.

He did have one particular formative adversarial experience from his early days of work, with a young female half elf rogue who deftly charmed her way past his already abundant cynicism and stole a number of prominent treasures from his employer. He was removed from his position and was initially furious at the woman for the lost of work and credibility, but recovered his status quickly and came to appreciate, admire and be amused by the ease with which she was able to adroitly manoeuvre past his strengths and apply her own skills to better effect. It was a valuable reminder for him that there are other forms of power and control that don't stem from a bared blade and end in bloodshed.

Initially, he was little more than a strong-arm thug or enforcer for wealthy and influential patrons, though he tended to steer clear of overtly criminal endeavours, but rather acted as a more direct and determined conduit to problem resolution than might otherwise be provided for in a civilised and lawful context.

For the last decade and more, he has been working directly for the lawful adjuncts of various governing bodies as a bounty hunter. Finding those that have escaped the process of lawful prosecution and incarceration and returning them to the machinations of society.

As of late though, he has come to feel that it's time for him to shift up to the next tier of control and seek out more expansive opportunities, and has decided that rather than try to unravel the densely intertwined politics and power games of established hierarchies, he is better off building a power base from the ground up.

Perspectives

In interactions Vaden tends to be well-spoken, but not overly complex. He is approachable but does tend to lean into the sense of intimidation that many people have in response to his fairly prominent physical capacity, and considers it a viable method for getting the outcomes he wants. He favours the social structure and predictability of law, though tends to otherwise be fairly personally neutral in a moral context.

He holds no particular God in high regard, believing instead that the Gods do as they will, with little concern for mortals, so he will return the favour in kind.

He has a distinct dislike for creatures or people who spread chaos and destruction though their choices and behaviour, and will often consider it a personal necessity to eliminate or subdue threats to the fabric of society.

He feels a strong affinity for those that are willing to fight and sacrifice for greater ideals or a purpose in life.

Edited January 27 by illusionoforder
Additional Info (see edit history)

[illusionoforder]

I do have an additional question, I meant to ask about this before, in the character creation, you've talked about using the Free Archetype variant rules and I checked the connected link as I wasn't sure about what that was ... and I'm still not sure what it means in this context. I understood the idea of the example that was giving in the linked information, which was that in a certain context there might be a reason for a GM to assign to players a 'free' archetype that fits in that particular play context, like all being pirates on a ship as well as the other 'normal' character picks, but what does that mean in our context? Are we meant to pick something that we might want to add as well as the character stuff we already have and see if you agree with the choices we make, or are you just priming us for the idea that you will assign an additional archetype?

[Phntm888]

7 hours ago, illusionoforder said:

 

Anyway, rather than tap you about the class variant and cause potential friction from the outset, I just went with rogue.

The Vivisectionist is an alchemist variant that wasn’t ported over from Pathfinder 1st Edition. However, to answer your second question…

 

5 hours ago, illusionoforder said:

I do have an additional question, I meant to ask about this before, in the character creation, you've talked about using the Free Archetype variant rules and I checked the connected link as I wasn't sure about what that was ... and I'm still not sure what it means in this context. I understood the idea of the example that was giving in the linked information, which was that in a certain context there might be a reason for a GM to assign to players a 'free' archetype that fits in that particular play context, like all being pirates on a ship as well as the other 'normal' character picks, but what does that mean in our context? Are we meant to pick something that we might want to add as well as the character stuff we already have and see if you agree with the choices we make, or are you just priming us for the idea that you will assign an additional archetype?

The Free archetype variant just means that, beginning at level 2, you get an extra feat every even-numbered level. Sometimes a specific archetype will be assigned for the campaign, other times you can choose from either a limited number of archetypes that fit the campaign or any archetype you’d like that works with your character.

So, returning to your previous bit about the Vivisectionist, you could make an Alchemist with, say, the Toxicologist research field and then choose Rogue as your free archetype, which would allow you to replicate the feeling of the Vivisectionist.

[Blaeringr]

Another approach to that combination could be to start as a rogue, and as long as you are trained in the crafting skill you qualify for the poisoner archetype as level 2.

[illusionoforder]

4 hours ago, Phntm888 said:

The Vivisectionist is an alchemist variant that wasn’t ported over from Pathfinder 1st Edition. However, to answer your second question…

 

The Free archetype variant just means that, beginning at level 2, you get an extra feat every even-numbered level. Sometimes a specific archetype will be assigned for the campaign, other times you can choose from either a limited number of archetypes that fit the campaign or any archetype you’d like that works with your character.

So, returning to your previous bit about the Vivisectionist, you could make an Alchemist with, say, the Toxicologist research field and then choose Rogue as your free archetype, which would allow you to replicate the feeling of the Vivisectionist.

Thanks for these clarifications. Perhaps the Vivisectionist subclass was considered too unbalanced and discontinued. In the computer game, it was a fairly strong mesh of some of the better features in other classes, as well as its own unique qualities.

I'll think about the options you have mentioned as alternates, but while I enjoy character theory crafting (I spent hours looking up character build information as I played through the start of the computer game), I suspect that with my lack of instinctive knowledge about finer details in the pen and paper rules, I am likely to get lost trying to effectively jell together complex interacting options without a distinct core build guide to bootstrap off, where the choice range is more about feature interactions I understand well.

I will try and solidify my build one way or the other over the day, today.

[illusionoforder]

Okay, I just looked at the Pathfinder 2E core rule book details for Alchemist, and though it's still an interesting class that I like the idea of playing, I realised that there's a degree of micromanaging that the computer game ignores or simplifies that I had forgotten about being a difference between the CRPG version and the TTRPG version, namely how spell caster classes have to manage consumable materials and reagents to use in casting.

That would definitely feel like tedious, illusion of play breaking, accounting/bookkeeping if I was having to make sure I always had enough 'bat wings' to create formula x, so I think my initial comment about being unsure of my relatively modest understanding of the rules getting in the way of attempting complex intertwined class builds was right.

I did find some more Free Archetype rule variant info and I now feel that I understand it a bit better, and it does sound like a great way to give a character more play options though additional feat selections from overlapping class potentials. I will think a bit more about my initial class choice relative to the additional mesh of options accessible through the Free Archetype rule to see if I can come up with a meld more interesting to develop, unless you would rather I stick with what I have put forward to keep things simple.

I am aware that the initial call for play has passed and that you might prefer that the remaining time till you choose the group might be better spent refining established details.

[Kistler]

I understand keeping it simple and going with what you've built, but I just wanted to let you know casting/alchemy isn't terribly problematic. If you want to roleplay every material component for the spells that require them and every alchemical reagent you could, but I find most players detail those things pretty intermittently when they want to add some extra flavor. Some ignore the roleplay of it entirely.

Mechanically though, it works quite simply:

Casting

You material component pouch has everything. You automatically refill it during daily prep. While that can be fun to roleplay, you'd likely be doing it alone and every day. It's not going to be the most engaging thing, and it is really easy to just not mention in detail. I've been in a game or two where all of our gear was taken away, but there are plenty of Spells without material components, so it's not crippling usually.

Alchemy I'm a little less familiar with, but generally the Infused Reagents that are automatically granted as part of daily prep seem to be plenty to get by. Anything beyond that would be handled by the crafting rules, which are very commonly purely a monetary transaction. There are some loots in published adventures that are things like "you find 2 bulk of alchemical ingredients worth 15gp", and the intent there is just use the crafting rules to make up to 30gp of whatever alchemical thing you'd like. I haven't ever seen a DM in 2e say something like "you can't find any eye of newt in town".

Now 1e, where crafting can be totally OP, I have seen that.

An alchemist is at a greater disadvantage than a caster if all their items are taken away. You still have reagents technically, but without alchemist tools you can't make anything.

Hope that helps to clarify!

[illusionoforder]

54 minutes ago, Kistler said:

I understand keeping it simple and going with what you've built, but I just wanted to let you know casting/alchemy isn't terribly problematic. If you want to roleplay every material component for the spells that require them and every alchemical reagent you could, but I find most players detail those things pretty intermittently when they want to add some extra flavor. Some ignore the roleplay of it entirely.

Mechanically though, it works quite simply:

Casting

You material component pouch has everything. You automatically refill it during daily prep. While that can be fun to roleplay, you'd likely be doing it alone and every day. It's not going to be the most engaging thing, and it is really easy to just not mention in detail. I've been in a game or two where all of our gear was taken away, but there are plenty of Spells without material components, so it's not crippling usually.

Alchemy I'm a little less familiar with, but generally the Infused Reagents that are automatically granted as part of daily prep seem to be plenty to get by. Anything beyond that would be handled by the crafting rules, which are very commonly purely a monetary transaction. There are some loots in published adventures that are things like "you find 2 bulk of alchemical ingredients worth 15gp", and the intent there is just use the crafting rules to make up to 30gp of whatever alchemical thing you'd like. I haven't ever seen a DM in 2e say something like "you can't find any eye of newt in town".

Now 1e, where crafting can be totally OP, I have seen that.

An alchemist is at a greater disadvantage than a caster if all their items are taken away. You still have reagents technically, but without alchemist tools you can't make anything.

Hope that helps to clarify!

All your feedback has been very helpful, sometimes even in aspects that are indirect. I've spent the majority of my free time today looking up some additional information relative to comments you've made in your replies, I realised at one point that while I have the core manuals for Pathfinder as saved pdfs to use as reference guides, they were actually old enough that I was missing some information, which was related to some of the things you were asking that I was puzzled about. I have managed to track down what I think is the current revisions of the core manual, and two updated Player and GM guides which seem to divide the core information in a better manner.

Specifically regarding the spell casting components, that's good to know that in general it's more about, you have a supply bag of the typical things you need for your casting, and it's assumed that you use them and refill them during routine play as an autonomous process, because yes, that would be tedious as hell to RP constantly. I also understand that in makes sense in specific contextual circumstances that the process becomes an overt consideration, such as the lost of equipment to some external event.

Puzzling out the class stuff now.

I do have another question, I looked for information in the manuals about alternate camping rules and couldn't find anything, so I am not sure if that's something that I actually want to be an active part of play.

[Kistler]

Did you see the camping link Phntm included in the 'Alternate Rules' topic on this forum? They're from the Kingmaker Companion Guide.

https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=1885

[illusionoforder]

3 hours ago, Kistler said:

Did you see the camping link Phntm included in the 'Alternate Rules' topic on this forum? They're from the Kingmaker Companion Guide.

https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=1885

Yes, I actually did see that and glance though, I just didn't realise what it was. My bad. I'm looking through a lot of stuff at the moment and that seemed to have gotten lost in the mix.

[illusionoforder]

Alright, I've finally finished my character, I think, though of course let me know if there is something still missing.

Rather than make this thread any more messy that it is, I'll edit the first post to reflect my final changes and comments.

[Phntm888]

The Sheriff background is an Uncommon background, so you're going to have to sell me on why that's the best background for the character and not a Common background like, say, Guard.

Where precisely is Vaden from? How did he hear about the expedition to the Stolen Lands?