Character creation!

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raixel
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Re: Character creation!

Post by raixel »

Ok, OB. I like the 'normal human dude' concept of Artaxes.

So, we have a fighter, a monk, Ameena's char (who she has asked me not to reveal, but who will basically be acting as a fighter), and a ranger. A divine caster, rogue type and arcane caster are recommended for anyone else who's interested in playing, but I can adapt if someone has their heart set on something else.. LB and money, will you be playing?
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Re: Character creation!

Post by Lord_BoNes »

As I stated on the OOC thread, I'm wanting to participate as a human weretiger that won't inflict the lycanthropy disease on those I attack. I think that a weretiger (given the bonus to dexterity) would make an interesting rogue, but I could go for spell-casting instead...
 
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Re: Character creation!

Post by raixel »

K. I have rules for natural lycanthropy. You wouldnt be an infected lycanthrope, so you wont spread it and be in control of yourself when you change and keep your chosen alignment. And a rogue sounds like a good choice. Let me look it up and see whatt the LA is and how we can make this work. But I like the idea!
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Re: Character creation!

Post by Lord_BoNes »

Should I go "ROAR!" right now? :P
 
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Re: Character creation!

Post by Ameena »

My char is sort of half a Rogue - I can do the sneaky stealthy stuff but not the picking locks/disarming traps bit. Not that Ameena ever did much of the latter and she is a Rogue, but of course we have no idea as to the exact setting of this game so we might find ourselves constantly in towns or big scary fortresses with lots of doors and suspiciously huge and sparkly chests :D.
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Re: Character creation!

Post by beowuuf »

Can I help it you abandoned the group when it might have been a useful skill once or twice :p You'e picked locks.

TRaps...hmm, I guess not. You keep going in safe places, or places that are dangerous for other reaosns. Once more, you guys just bypassed Filius/Minas which would have been very much a dungeomn survial area!
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Re: Character creation!

Post by Ameena »

Lol yeah, I may not have had much call to do stuff with Thievery, but I'm bloody glad I had the Stealth skill (Blackskull guards around the Level 9 fountain room, anyone? ;)) from the amount of sneaking about I've had to do :D. And Perception pretty mucuh goes without saying - I'll always train it (or in the case of 3.5, add points to it) when playing a game...well, it's not called "Perception" in some games, but whatever its equivalent is. It is kinda useful to be able to spot stuff, after all ;).
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Re: Character creation!

Post by raixel »

Cool, so LB I found my rules for applying lycanthrope templates to PCs. It says here naturals have a LA of +2, which is small enough that we can alter the abilities of the class so you dont have to take an XP penalty. I'll pm you with the details later. If you have it, its pg 144 of Races of Faerun.
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Re: Character creation!

Post by raixel »

Hey LB. Ive been testing some ideas for a non LA were tiger, and I'm having a bit of trouble dropping it to the "typical" PC power, without losing the uniqueness of the race.

So I need to ask you to rate these in order of importance as in whaich ones fit the idea you have the best, and I'll see what I can do.

1. Hybrid form
2. Animal Form
3. Ability bonus
4. Natural AC bonus
5. DR/silver
6. Lycathropic Empathy
7. Scent

Ok, basically the plan I have so far is to not add thr animal HD/skills/feats/ect together with the base (Im assuming human) and then add some of the special qualities. You think that'll work? I unfortunately am probably not going to be able to give you a lot of them,but at least we can make it work.
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Re: Character creation!

Post by raixel »

Alright so we're back in buisiness. Question, Ian and OB, is your char sheet as listed on here the final? I know Ameena's still working on hers. Also, Ameena, I dont have as many of our PMs saved in here as I thought I did. If you have them could you email them to (myforum(and real for that matter)name) ate gee mail (dot) (com), otherwise we might have to take a few steps back.
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Re: Character creation!

Post by Ameena »

Sure, I can copy and paste everything I have into a big massive long e-mail and send it to you...I'll do that in a bit :).
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Re: Character creation!

Post by ian_scho »

raixel wrote:Ian and OB, is your char sheet as listed on here the final?
I believe it is. Do let me know if anything is missing :) I'm not used to the system.
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Re: Character creation!

Post by beowuuf »

Ah yes, the chaotic monk, I forgotwho your character was goign to be! That will be fun to see in actions :D
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Re: Character creation!

Post by raixel »

K. Shooting for next mon(a week from tomorrow, its late sun afternoon here as I type this) for the start date for everyone. If that doesn't work for some people, let me know and we can change it. I figure that will give me enough time to fig out how to write you all in (unless Sssil drowns right now. Death by swamp turtle!) and get char issues squared away. Now, the question remains, why are you all running around in the swamps outside of the lizar capital of Makan? And are you together or not? The other option (and one I'm not really fond of) is to just ret-con everyone in as caravan guards. But I'm not happy about that, I think you should meet and join the group. So, within a week, it would be cool if everyone (time constraints aside) could post at least a concept of what you are all doing. If you need ideas, I'll answer any questions or you could email me at (myname) ate (g)ee male dot com if you wannt to keep it secret.
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Re: Character creation!

Post by ian_scho »

raixel wrote:....why are you all running around in the swamps outside of the lizar capital of Makan?
.... are you together or not?
.... just ret-con everyone in as caravan guards.
.... if you wannt to keep it secret.
1. We're on a mission from God? My character will have her own motives for participating.
2. Why not say we're in two groups and meet up! Alrighty, have to think about that one. I'm sure ameena has a better suggestion though :) It's an opportunity for the games master to order us to cooperate.
3. my character could be a pretend pilgrim as well.
4. need to create some more background for the character, in my case. It's difficult wanting to destroy civilization to start over again and keep it secret! Note: Doesn't mean that she won't fight for her team though...

I really need to reread the char sheet once more. Will do so.
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Re: Character creation!

Post by beowuuf »

1. Perhaps the captial of Maakan is famous for something you would pilgrimage for, or perhaps it has a certain product to trade for, etc?
4. Civilisation can go hang, but perhaps your character values people who show a survival trait or compassion or strength. Whatever it is she thinks is lacking in civilisation to want it to fall, I guess :)
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Re: Character creation!

Post by oh_brother »

Sorry for the delay replying - yes my char sheet is finished.

1. There were some skirmishes on the Lizardman/Human borders, and Artaxes was involved...or he is returning from a campaign. Problems here is that both scenarios require the presence of other NPCs, unless he got somehow separated. Need some time to think about this.
2. I don't know who or what Ameena is playing, so I cannot say there. Ian is playing a chaotic nun (I've seen plenty of them in my time!), so it might be tough to come up with a reason why she is travelling with a human sergeant. LB is a weretiger, but could be mistaken as a human? Maybe he was on campaign with Artaxes?
3. If needed.
4. No, no secrets here!
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raixel
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Re: Character creation!

Post by raixel »

Um, Beo. I just thought of something. I'm helping Ameena with her char and in the process I realizes something about the condensing of skills and skill points. Are you altering the number of skill points a char gets at each level to a smaller amount? Cuz I just thought say ok, perception for example. It condenses 3 skills into one. Meaning that instead of spreading the points out across 3 skills, you only use one. Therefore all skill ranks are gonna be way higher, probably close to max per lev. So do you just raise the DC's accordingly to balance it or what? Or are you asking players to add the points as normal then condense them for the average? I don't remember how we did it.

The averaging and condensing seems the best bet to keep it balanced, I think.
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Re: Character creation!

Post by raixel »

And OB, I'm still crafting LB's weretiger cuz its WAY harder to balance than I thought without making under/overpowered compared to everyone else. I'm having a friend test roll a couple of combats while I play as the tiger, and this is the 3rd re-write *sigh*. I might just go the template as class option. But at this point its looking like he's gunna have a human and pure tiger form, no hybrid. And in human form, yeah, the char would pass as human, but kinda odd.

Beo, you might not want to read this unless you want to know potentially where the other players could be coming from.
Spoiler
I like the idea of the border skirmishes, although the humans and civilized lizar wouldn't be fighting each other as they are neutral trade partners(not super friendly, but tolerant). But there are bands of swamp lizar that have been corrupted by Chaos' forces. Perhaps you all were a group of mercenaries? Thing is the lizar are kinda...prejudiced...when it comes to mammals so I don't see them hiring mammal mercenaries. Or you could be part of a mixed lizar and human military unit made up of mammal (human elven ect) army regulars, mammal mercenaries and lizar army regulars/mercenaries as part of a joint pacification force to quell chaos-worshipping swamp lizar that have been plaguing both human and lizar caravans and lands? That would fit in with whats going on in beo's campaign. Sssil has already been rumors of chaos worshipping swamp lizar bands attacking trade caravans and travellers in the area. And rumors that secretly chaos-worshipping nobles of Makan are involved too. So its possible that a noble slipped your location to the enemy, and your camp was routed in an ambush at night, and you guys are the survivors?
Just some options, feel free to use any or none of em!
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Re: Character creation!

Post by beowuuf »

The basic classes aside from rogue get so few skill points, especially if you iron man the ability rolls, that I went with full skill points despite the condensing of the skills. Obviously Ameena's rogue was the only worry, well to a lesser extent Aurek's paladin due to his high intelligence. However, I still just decided I would accept the large skill bonuses since players find it more fun to be able to do thigns instead of not do them. I kept the DCs to the guidelines to protect the lower skill possessors, and just tried to make sure that it was the attempt - and consequences - that mattered as much as the outcome. The DC just let me know how to narratively play it, but there were always consequences of varying sizes rather than a pass/fail.

The real problem I found was niche protection - I think I played the narrative card more strongly than I might have otherwise, so Westian's character and his Diplomacy skills had a different flavour than Ameena's diplomacy even when their bonuses started to get closer together. Similarly Aurek and Falkor's dungeoneering skill or what Ameena's perception and large bonus meant as opposed to Haynuus lucking spotting something.


Since you are going closer to the SRD and allowing more classes and races, you may very well want to condesnse and average. Or even just split the skills after all since nio one is carrying over their old character. Another thing to do might be to make things like perception be a cross class skill no matter what. So low skill point classes probably won't notice it, but it might sink some points for high skill point classes (like ranger and rogue). Also having speak language get up to four ranks might be a nice skill point sink too?

My own character is constructed from the normal split up skills, so you didn't actually have to deal with this so far. I forget youir plan here, maybe you were goign to see how combined skills would alter thigns as we went?
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Re: Character creation!

Post by Ameena »

With condensed skills, at the start of the game I've got more points than I can spend! ;) But we're working on it...
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Re: Character creation!

Post by raixel »

Well, personally, I don't like the combined skills, and wouldnt use em given a chance. But IIRC, I asked and everyone wanted to keep em. I'll have to check the rules discussion thread and see if that was where it was discussed. I know it was discussed I just don't remember where. Also on a side note it might be a good idea for everyone to reread the house rules I posted on there to make sure everyone thinks they're ok so we can discuss em if they're not.

But that was before I realized the whole point problem. And yeah, I am worried a bit bout niche protection. Its a weird mix we got going on here. Weird to the point that I'm gunna wait a bit to get the DM's NPC rolled up so I can fill a class hole if needed. I think maybe the final decision about condensing will be based on the range of classes we have. I know at least one (possibly two) chars are race-as-class PCs. So the condensation might actually be a good thing cuz we are most likely gonna have some major class holes. As of right now, no rogue, cleric, or mage. LB's char might be able to fill one, but I really think the only way to make the weretiger work is to make it race-as-class. Otherwise he might just be a human with a kinda weretigerish flavor (mmmm lycanthrope ;)). Mage isn't really needed, cuz I generally play a low-permanent magic but high charged and wonderous item type world. So it'd be easy to just replace a lot of mage effects with wonderous item type stuff(kinda like whats already happening in Sssil's campaign).

Cleric and rogue might be a problem. But with the condensation, I could allow one of the race-as-class PC's to make rogue skills class skills. We'll see.

Another question is level. I don't really want to start everyone out at 7th lev. Thats kinda high for what Ive got planned. Its fine for Sssil right now cuz he's solo but I think I want to start everyone somewhere around 3-4. Beo, as far as Sssil we could just retroactively remove the levels without narration (after all, he is young and inexperienced, whats he doing at lev 7? ;)), and assume that the XP he earned so far bumped him from lev 1 to 3. Or I could craft some story reason why he lost abilities. But again, considering his inexperience in-character that doesn't really make narrative sense. What do you all think?
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Re: Character creation!

Post by Ameena »

I can partially cover Rogue abilities...well, I've got a couple, anyway ;). But even if some role isn't filled by a PC, isn't it part of the challenge/fun to come up with encounters and stuff that don't require that role? At the very least you need a tank and a healer for combat, some DPS is good too of course. And for out-of-combat it's helpful to have someone who's social, someone who knows stuff, and hopefully a good spread of knowledge/experience regarding a variety of settlements/geographical regions. But I bet any half-decent set of players can normally muddle through most scenarios with some weird random ideas and some lucky dice rolls ;).
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Re: Character creation!

Post by beowuuf »

We could always call his skill points 'at home' skill points, and so he'd lose them not being directly on his home territory and in the company of such strangers. And perhaps a wound or condition to explain his lesser hp, etc. and the fact certain abilities he can't do right now.

Or just hand wave it, of course. It's just mechanics :) Sssssil's been played pretty straight and inexperiences, so I don't think losing levels would alter playing him much, aside from him being less successful at certain things.

At lower level, are you still going to allow me to have the low ability scores? Part of his survivability came from his level right now. I did have the alternate ability rolls, thoguh I admit to liking him as he is right now. Though that works due to being alone, of course.
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Re: Character creation!

Post by raixel »

I coulda sworn I replied to you, Beo. But I guess not.

Oh, and OB and Ian, your chars look great. I like em, and the concepts a lot. So what do you guys think about starting at 3rd lev? That;'ll keep you all from getting your asses handed to you, but still have enough room for growth that I wouldn't be throwing tanar'ri and the like at you within a level or 2.

And Beo, yeah, I like Sssil the way he is now too. Um, maybe to make up for his low stats. we could give him the full range of lizardman abilities, like the full ac bonus? AFAIR, it was partial to avoid the LA. But as he stands right now, his LA probably should be -1 anyway :P So it wouldnt be a big deal.
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Re: Character creation!

Post by beowuuf »

So drop him down to level 3 but give him the lizardman stuff he doens't already have?
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Re: Character creation!

Post by Ameena »

Err, sorry, what's "LA" again? It's one of those things I've forgotten. I'm guessing it's Level-something.
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Re: Character creation!

Post by beowuuf »

Level adjustment. When your monster/race-character is too kick-arse, you effectively are thought to have a few 'levels' in your monster to balance with a normal human/elf/dwarf etc. So somethign with LA 3 at 1st level is already equivalent to a 4th level normal race character.
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Re: Character creation!

Post by Ameena »

Oh, I thought that was erm...CL? Character Level? Character Rating? Or something? Something beginning with C. I think. Or is that something else?
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Re: Character creation!

Post by beowuuf »

Lol, it is, just confusing. Character level + level adjustment = effect character level

So a first level character (1) with a +3 Level adjustment has an ECL (effective character level) of 4
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