3 hours ago, Wizard of the Coat said:In that case...
1. The Piety rules indicate the following as a reasonable expectation of a PC's advancement in Piety.
That brings to mind two questions. First, any chance you'll be awarding some amount of Piety based on our player application/Backstory, reflecting the past Piety we would have earned in the process of reaching Level 3. Second, mechanics that are based on "sessions of play" tend to breakdown when applied to PbP. What is done in one 5 our session of FtF play might take months or even a year in PbP. So should we expect, as with XP and leveling, that our Piety scores will remain relatively stagnant in this PbP medium?
2. I was very happy to see that Nezeris, your God of Trickery, also the "Path Maker" and "Messenger," is Chaotic Good. This is such a cool pairing of roles and alignment! I was hooked as soon as I read it. (Yeah, I saw that his offical portfolio only includes Arcana and Trickery--which is a perfect fit for an Arcane Trickster, but...) My character will be an Oracle of Nezeris, and I've designed the character concept to incorporate these three (Nezerisian?) themes of travel, trickery, and delivering messages (implied in Nezeris' titles). If you read between the lines of some of what I've written, you'll see that I have particular ideas about what Nezeris is all about and what it is like to serve him. So, I'm wondering, are players allowed any degree of "world building latitude" with regard to the conceptualization of (some of) the deities you've provided? Or do you have the Gods and their agendas clearly mapped out as part of the world that is closed to player world building? If you are open to world building on this issue--or even dialog--I've got ideas about a conceptualization of Nezeris I'd like to pitch.
3. A central idea of this character concept is that he's a hedge wizard (a conman/minor wizard steeped in the tradition of self-taught wizards) even though mechanically he is an Arcane Trickster. So one of my goals is to make him appear as a (minor) wizard more than a rogue. Hence he wears no armor and fights with a dagger and... you get the idea. That said, (mechanically speaking) it would be a bad idea to give him ranged combat cantrips because his potential for ranged sneak attack will always be much more effective. And yet, I'd like there to be something magical about his ranged fighting. You've indicated that the sources for character creation are limited to official sources, which is fine by me. I've finished the mechanics for the character at this point, and if he relies heavily on his sling and darts for ranged combat, I can live with that. However, I'm wondering if you would occasionally make exceptions to your "official sources only" policy. Specifically, I'm wondering if there might exist a cantrip that would operate as do Booming Blade, Green Flame Blade, and other cantrips that require you to make a weapon attack as part of the cantrip--but rather than provide additional damage or rider effects to a melee attack, this cantrip would apply to a ranged attack with a light thrown weapon, and its only effect would be to cause the weapon to return to the caster's hand after the attack. This would look cool and feel magical--in a "minor magical" way. And it would allow my PC to walk around with only one weapon on his person, which he would use for melee or ranged attacks, giving him the flavor of relying less upon an arsenal of weapons and more upon magic to support his fighting. And given that he's got sneak attack potential, it would be pretty cool that he's throwing a dagger which is doing much more damage than it should (due to sneak attack) and then returning to his hand due to his spell casting. No worries if this is a "hard no." Frankly, I'm not even sure I'd be willing to give up one of my current cantrips to get this proposed cantrip. I just wanted to know if something like this would be an option.
4. A central idea of this character concept is that the character is young--at the border between adolescence and adulthood. In 3.5, that age would have been 16, but 5e didn't keep those granular rules, instead saying simply that "Humans reach adulthood in their late teens." Using that standard, sixteen would be the midpoint between early and late adolescence. Does 16 fit your setting? I've been assuming that my PC has been traveling and having adventures in his childhood and early(er) adolescence that got him to this minimum "adult" age (for a human) with enough XP to already be 3rd level. I'm also assuming a typical Western-European feudal setting where a sixteen year old would be capable of setting off on his own to make a life for himself. Does this sound right for this setting? Do you have any concerns about me playing a minor (by modern standards)?
5. I thought I saw a spot on your pages where you providing naming conventions for the setting, but maybe I was looking at a different game. Do you have information somewhere about naming conventions we might use in naming our characters? If so, can you point me in the right direction?
6. I made a custom Background that will serve as a significant part of this character concept. If it's a thumbs down from you, I'll need to rework a few aspects of the concept. So I'm wondering if this is the kind of thing you would be willing to look over and provide feedback/approval/disapproval before the submission deadline.
7. I've got starting gear from my class that I won't be needing/using. Do you allow players to sell gear they don't want at half price in order to buy stuff they do want? I can afford to take the loss. But if I can start with more money, that's good. Related to this question, what are the limits of what we can purchase with our starting 200 sp? Can we, for example, purchase healing potions? Better yet, can we use the money to have previously crafted minor magic items or healing potions (as per the revised "Downtime" rules in Xanathar's Guide to Everything)? I ask because this is part of what pre-campaign-start Augur does with his money, he uses it to craft minor magic items which he sells in his role as a hedge wizard.
8. Are you OK with refluffing of spells. For example, could I refluff Silvery Barbs as a divination effect related to Augur's ability to hear whispers of warning, doing or saying things that swing combats in his favor. Similarly, could I refluff Mage Armor as more of the same: the whispers helping Augur, anticipate his opponent's moves, dodging or avoiding attacks through trickery and/or seemingly preternatural reflexes?
9. Totally random, but... I saw that there are airships in this setting. Way cool! How common are they? How affordable is travel by air as opposed to travel by sea?
That's plenty of questions for now. Thanks for your willingness to answer questions!
Okay, this will hopefully not be too lengthy but let us go!
1. Good Ol Piety: I plan to handle Piety in a way that gives the players agency in this case. As you've described PbP is really slow in the way it progresses systems of leveling, I use Milestone leveling myself but Piety I want to leave it in the hands of the players. The way I want to do this is based on the way the players interact with the world and the decisions the players make will determine how quickly they do or do not increase and/or decrease your Piety (Hopefully the first one :P) I've toyed around with everyone starting at 3 Piety with oracles and such that start at 3 already starting at 4 Piety instead as this, much like Theros, is a god heavy setting and I want that to be one of the main themes.
2. WorldBuilding And You!: A lot of the gods I have purposefully left open for your characters to interpret. Not everyone worships, let's say, Nezeris the same way. Some worship him by maintaining the roads and his roadside statues, Others worship him by being couriers and moving between towns relaying important messages. Every god has many facets so I'm open to pitches and worldbuilding and I always have an open ear for ideas.
3. Cantrips Are Your Friends: I think for this I would move away from it being a cantrip and instead a magical item like a ring that functions in the same way and that can be paired with up to (3?) items that when thrown it comes back to your hand.
4. How Old Are You?!: I'm not usually a huge fan of younger PC's but with the settings I am emulating an "Adult" could be someone as young as 16, as long as everyone else in the party is okay with it I would be fine with it I don't dwell into the darker topics of RP other than character death and such. I would prefer a bit older say 18. But it won't disqualify you unless your character is very young in which case I would ask them to be older. I'm going for a melting pot of real-world settings to pool from and not one overarching one.
5. Naming Conventions: Indeed! I think it's in the OOC page or maybe one of the apps but I've used Ancient Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Medieval, and 5E naming conventions when it came to character names. I just change or remove a letter here or there until I'm happy with it.
6. Backgrounds They're Important: Custom backgrounds are more than fine I see no issues.
7. Take My Money!: I've been meaning to address this but have just been very busy so this is a good time and ill have to update it somewhere in case anyone misses it. Selling equipment is fine, buying health potions is fine, and crafting common magical items per the requirements of XGTE is fine. Magic items will be another big theme in this campaign so expect the enemies to have them as well.
8. Rule Of Cool: Yes, Yes, Yes. Go crazy. Want mage armor to look like a giant transparent hand that blocks the incoming attack? Rad. Want Eldritch blast to look like a bolt of black lightning? Do it. So in short yes feel free to re-fluff how your spells look along as they work the same.
9. You Saw It!: Two words. Very Rare. Only Grehesia has airships and they are just becoming widely used in Grehesia at the moment. This will expand during the campaign to more countries and become more usable as time passes in the world.
I hope these answers were helpful and they definitely made me think a bit so I appreciate that!