There's really no chance of me beating Vivian's initiative, so I won't bother. Speaking of, though, shouldn't the rest of us have a shot at it before it skitters off, since we're doing group initiative?
There's really no chance of me beating Vivian's initiative, so I won't bother. Speaking of, though, shouldn't the rest of us have a shot at it before it skitters off, since we're doing group initiative?
Right.
__________________
That whale is going to die, and it's Fullbladder's fault.
Sorry about my atrociously low posting rate. I've been absurdly busy teaching lately, and this is one of my first days without Saturday programming to address. I have a few errands to run today, but once I'm back, I'll be making a catch-up IC post. Again, apologies.
So, are we going to start over or is BelGerath's character going to join us somehow? Depending on what he wants to play, the former might be a better idea. We have too many damage dealers and not enough creative problem solvers, so if we do start over I'd end up playing Davkhur, my Beguiler//Archivist.
So, are we going to start over or is BelGerath's character going to join us somehow? Depending on what he wants to play, the former might be a better idea. We have too many damage dealers and not enough creative problem solvers, so if we do start over I'd end up playing Davkhur, my Beguiler//Archivist.
Well here is a link to my char, just finishing up the fluff portion. HERE, I was going for the "I am a little-one support guy, who can also heal with wands and crowd control" thing.
I saw your group makeup and thought a caster would be a good way to go, although the warmage is more blasty than utility, T.G.Oksars spell list has some nice crowd control and transport spells, plus my racial abilities.
EDIT: finished the fluff, I also left it vague enough to allow for entry into the storyline if need be.
Hmm. Well, in that case I cast my provisional vote for starting over. We lost our skill monkey and are gaining another primary damage dealer, which puts us at three out of four characters (and my damage dealer, while a fun build, is probably less useful than the other two). A summoner/illusionist would probably be more useful.
I'm not sure why we'd need to start over. We've only just entered the building, no? Why not simply have a reason to briefly scramble out (healing, left the stove on, whatever) and have the newcomers enter in as reinforcements?
Also, I see that I need to redo my turn. I post something later today.
I'm not sure why we'd need to start over. We've only just entered the building, no? Why not simply have a reason to briefly scramble out (healing, left the stove on, whatever) and have the newcomers enter in as reinforcements?
Also, I see that I need to redo my turn. I post something later today.
A) It's a deus ex machina.
B) We've lost at least one player whose character needs to be dealt with. (Anyone seen Lix around the forum? She's been silent since the last IC post.)
C) It's harder to run encounters with six characters than with five or four.
D) Without Arapim, we have no skill monkey.
A) It's a deus ex machina.
B) We've lost at least one player whose character needs to be dealt with. (Anyone seen Lix around the forum? She's been silent since the last IC post.)
C) It's harder to run encounters with six characters than with five or four.
D) Without Arapim, we have no skill monkey.
Those are, in fact, fair points. If we were to do that, I might take the opportunity to rewrite the campaign, maybe remove the whole 'save-the-world' thing- looking back at it, it's kind of silly.
And Lix is everywhere. I honestly don't know why she hasn't been posting here.
__________________
That whale is going to die, and it's Fullbladder's fault.
I ship you/Anyone./Infernal Gardevoir from outside the playground, by Recaiden//ExtendedSig
Spoiler
Quote:
Originally Posted by Thanqol
It's not normal, of course, and what's actually happening in Comet Kicker's brain is that she's using regular murder as therapy for worse murder. There's a breakdown in the works and all it needs is one good, hard kick.
I could change most off my levels in warlock to rogue, that woukd help a significant amount...I'll take a look when I get to school tonight.
I was thinking it would be easier to gestaltify a character of mine from a previous Eberron game. Warmage, Radiant, Swordmage, and RKV are all damage dealers. So is 'Teia, and it's her only shtick. Plus I've discovered she's not as fun to play as she is to write for.
Davkhur is a Necropolitan Illumian Beguiler/Mindbender//Archivist/Swordsage/Shadow Adept focusing on illusions, summons, and a few buffs. He's skill-point starved, though, so I'm hoping that the traps will be what we saw in that last room will be be the norm, e.g. puzzles, not Disable Device checks. I have three things I wanted to run by you, Lateral, if I use him: First, the unseelie fey template (Winter's Chill season power, no wings, and regular old darkvision; basically trading iron vulnerability and decreased Strength for a bump to Dexterity and DR). Second, basing the uses/day of Spontaneous Summoner off of Intelligence rather than Wisdom. (When the feat came out, the only class that could benefit was Cleric.) And since it's pretty damn powerful, I thought I should check to see if Greenbound Summoning was okay.
He's skill-point starved, though, so I'm hoping that the traps will be what we saw in that last room will be be the norm, e.g. puzzles, not Disable Device checks.
Wait, I hadn't included any puzzles yet. The only traps were those booby traps, and they were almost entirely for flavor.
Quote:
I have three things I wanted to run by you, Lateral, if I use him: First, the unseelie fey template (Winter's Chill season power, no wings, and regular old darkvision; basically trading iron vulnerability and decreased Strength for a bump to Dexterity and DR). Second, basing the uses/day of Spontaneous Summoner off of Intelligence rather than Wisdom. (When the feat came out, the only class that could benefit was Cleric.) And since it's pretty damn powerful, I thought I should check to see if Greenbound Summoning was okay.
Okay to all.
__________________
That whale is going to die, and it's Fullbladder's fault.
My character has decent skill points, so maybe we could split those skills we need. And my rakshasa side can cast up to 3rd level arcane spells and has UMD (+ Cha based) so I can provide the utility spells.
My character has decent skill points, so maybe we could split those skills we need. And my rakshasa side can cast up to 3rd level arcane spells and has UMD (+ Cha based) so I can provide the utility spells.
That makes it a lot easier, actually. I have UMD maxed right now, but with no Charisma bonus and no other UMD boosters, it's not reliable enough for battle. I'll still keep one rank for when/if I want to craft a Runestaff, and leave it be from there. I'll put those ranks into Disable Device, and I've got knock, so Open Lock is unnecessary. Mindsight mostly removes the need for Spot/Listen, but for if when () Lateral throws something with a non-RAW Darkstalker at us, someone else should have good mundane senses.
Oh, and Lateral's already seen this, but here is Davkhur's background from the Eberron game that fizzled out. A few things have changed: he doesn't have as high a level of spells as he did, he doesn't wear a Sentira breastplate (too expensive for level 8), and no runestaff yet (ditto). Davkhur speaks in Maroon:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jeff the Green
Background
Beware: quite long (>1,000 words).
Spoiler
"I was never a very good Illumian. Sure, I'm obsessed with finding relics and spells and digging up ancient history, but that was always for the pleasure of it—never for the cabal.
"The first book I ever read was a history of Sharn. The second was a story about a swashbuckling warforged pirate that I got from an elf child who lived near our cabal. Most parents would hardly be surprised by which one was my favorite. When *my* parents found the novel stashed under my mattress, they were aghast. My mother wept. She was convinced I was going to hell. (That's metaphorical, actually. Evil Illumians don't go to hell; Tarmuid Unnames them, and they don't issue a Final Utterance, so the Word making up their soul stays in their rotting body. Nice guy, Tarmuid). My Father didn't bother to cry. He just cast Symbol of Pain on my bed every night. I was two and he used a Symbol of ****ing Pain to punish me!
"Well, Illumians might be messed up, but we're still mostly human. My parents didn't dissuade me from "wasting" my time reading novels. Their punishments just encouraged me to read more and more. By the time I was 13, I'd read something like 1500 novels. 'Course, around that time I started reading things like 'King Boranex's Reluctant Lady' and 'The Buxom Pontiff's Wild Ride in Talenta.'
"Anyway, I didn't fit in from the start. When I was 16 the cabal stopped trying to get me to stop and started trying to get me killed. Well, I'm not sure they *meant* to get me killed. I was sent away as often as possible, often to Xen'drik or Khyber to find artifacts and lost books or tablets. I found plenty, but I found more monsters.
"If they were trying to kill me, they succeeded in my 21st year. I was sent to recover scrolls detailing some trivial details of Tarmuid's mortal life. Of course, they were in a tomb. And that tomb was guarded by a mummy. I was lucky enough to escape with the help of some illusions--thank goodness mummies are stupid--but I caught Mummy Rot.
"Gods, that was unpleasant. With my insides on fire, and about to die, I turned to the Blood of Vol. I'd learned Lady Vol's little secret on one of my expeditions, and I convinced them to turn me into an undead. At least I thought I convinced them.
"They went through the ceremony; the crucifixion, the anointment with unholy oil, the chanting zombies. If I weren't delerious with fever, I would have been creeped out. But they left out the last bit, the part where the pumped negative energy into my body, trapping my soul and preventing it from leaving to Dolurrh.
"It was strange, hovering over my body, waiting for them like that. Even once they'd taken my body down and it was clear they didn't plan on reanimating me, I wasn't mad, or even upset. I knew I should be, knew I should be furious, but with no heart to beat, fists to clench, or blood to surge to my head, there just wasn't any emotion.
"And then I was in the Realm of the Dead. It was boring. I mean, I know a lot of people find ancient history and museums and books boring. They should try a vacation in Dolurrh. It's just grey. Everywhere. Everything. It is duller than the worst of my teachers at the cabal, duller than spending a sea voyage belowdecks, duller than a half-orc's wit.
"Years passed. I think. I was never exactly clear about time there. Eventually I started to become like the rest of the shades there. I became gray myself.
"Eventually, I felt a tug. I ignored it at first, but then it grew stronger. There was a jerk. Another. Another, even stronger than the last, and then a burning pain like I never thought possible. It felt wonderful! I was alive, and the pain—the glorious pain— was proof of it. I sat up even before I opened my eyes. And then I saw him. My father.
"The time I'd spent in Dolurrh had not treated him well. His eyes were clouded as though he was dead, and his nose had caved in. Worse were his sigils, which were a dirty grey rather than the harshly glowing gold I remembered.
"I didn't say anything. So he started. Turns out that our—his—cabal were engaged in a covert war against another. One of the Gravewhisper cabals, the ones that work with the Blood of Vol and have zombies and skeletons as servants. My father led the fight, and he destroyed them. Tar vu yote. They should have known that Vol, that shriveled old witch, wouldn't stand for that. And she didn't. My father—and now me— were the only surviving members.
"My father, though, was only barely a 'surviving member.' One of Vol's Abectors had cursed him, and he was slowly turning into some sort of undead. Probably one of the less pleasant ones, knowing my father; I'm sure he'd get along well with mohrgs.
"He wanted me to swear vengeance on his enemies. Well, actually, he said 'our enemies.' 'Our enemies.' No. The only thing I wanted to do to Vol was send her flowers. I sat up and left. I haven't, thank Aulasha, seen him again. Maybe he ended up killing himself to avoid becoming undead, but I like to think he's chained to that rotten body obeying the every whim of his killers.
"I discovered something after I left. I have no heart beat. It's not just thready and hard to find like some people's get, but actually not there. I ended up paying a healer from house Jorasco to see what was happening. He couldn't figure it out, so he cut me open. I mean, literally, cut me open while I watched. My heart still wasn't beating. A gift from Vol and my father, I guess.
"Since then I've made my living running around acquiring artifacts for collectors. You wouldn't believe what some people will pay for old crap. It's been nice, actually. I rob a tomb or ruined castle, and then hand over the gewgaws I find, but keep the scrolls and steles and schemas and creation patterns. Hey, I may have abandoned my cabal, but I'm still an Illumian.
"So, where's the job? Aerenal? The place where they worship dead people? Why in Tarmuid's name would you want me to go there?
"...How much? Fine. Half up front."
Personality
Spoiler
"You want me to describe myself? I feel like I'm signing up for one of those services that magically finds people who you should date. Well, I'm brilliant, obviously. I have lots of energy; I'm always moving around and I'm up at all hours. I'm discrete--I have to be, in my business--and I don't feel shackled to telling the truth when it's inconvenient.
"I don't necessarily mind helping people out, but it's not something I'd go out of my way to do. I mean, it's hard for somebody's plight to tug at your heartstrings when you don't have a heart. There are exceptions. Kids, for example. Mostly I just want to collect my artifacts and read my trashy novels.
"My turn ons include intelligence, a love of poetry, and an appreciation for history. My turn offs include low-self esteem, jealousy, and Symbols of Pain."
Ahem. Jeff here. Since Davkhur is quite oblivious about certain facets of his personality, I'll list them here. He is egotistical, conniving, selfish, and unconstrained by the truth. Also flighty, paranoid and obsessive. Oh, and intolerant of stupid people.
He has some good traits to set those off a bit, thankfully. He's dedicated and loyal, so long as you've given him reason to believe you will be so in return. He's also very excited by knowledge, driven, and energetic. Admittedly the last three can go either way.
Description
Spoiler
"Seriously, I have to describe what I look like? I'm not looking for a date.
"Fine. I'm tall—well, short, for an illumian; tall for anything else—and thin. Yellow eyes, yellow sigils. High cheekbones, classical features, and so on. I've got a big scar across my chest, and a few others here and there. Nothing on my face. I mean, I look like an Illumian; what am I supposed to say?"
Gods damn it, Davkhur. First you go on forever about your daddy issues, and now you say "I look like an Illumian."
Fine. I'll do your work for you.
The visual impression Davkhur makes is largely dependent on what he's doing. When exploring, but not expecting battle, he looks, for lack of a better word, acquisitive. He wears fairly standard clothes, but they're sewed all over with extraneous pockets of various sizes. At any one time as many as 90% of them might be filled, or as few as 10%, but generally if they're that low temples had better double check their statuary when he leaves.
When he's about town, he's quite striking. When the weather allows it, he wears only loose breaches (which, if you make the mistake of letting him tell you the story, he stole from a Kalashtar mystic while she was meditating) and a sash around his waist. In the latter, again, are usually concealed some sort of treasure a priest will soon be missing. His torso and face are painted, sometimes in garish colors and patterns, other times in imitation of various art styles, modern or ancient, and still others in delicate flowing lines evoking a sort of genteel spirit. The last he usually employs when he's trying to convince priests of his good intentions. They don't usually help.
He's not muscular, by any means, but the muscles he does have are toned and limber. If he discards his shirt out of vanity, it's not misplaced, but any potential admirers are generally put off by the combination of the paintings and his sometimes odd demeanor. Those, and the romance novels he often has his nose in while walking about the square.
In battle, he seems almost comical. He frequently wields two quarterstaffs at once, one merely a well-crafted walking stick, the other a curious creation with numerous hand-like protrusions extending from it. It seems completely ill suited to battle, but then, so does he. Despite his weak frame, he wears a breastplate, paldrons, and greaves, all apparently carved out of the shell of some great, blue, mollusk. It curves and twists in shapes that could never be approached by any but the best craftsmen, and he bears it easily.
General Tactics
Spoiler
Davkhur has a metric f***ton of spells available, so he's fairly liberal in their use. Generally, his first move is to summon something. What he summons depends largely on what he's up against. With spontaneous summon nature's ally he's mostly got beatsticks (and with a ring of the beast they're big beatsticks), but he also has judiciously chosen summon monster spells for SLAs.
After his first summon goes to work, he will either cast haste, since he has plenty of beguiler slots available for it, or another summon spell.
Finally, he'll cast an illusion of a summon. The False Theurgy skill trick ensures they can't tell that he's actually casting an illusion, and he can maintain control of it while still casting through the sonorous hum spell, the Extraordinary Concentration feat, and the Swift Concentration skill trick.
The rest of the battle is pretty much repetition of the above, though he does have some save or die/suck spells available like lastai's caress and mummify.
What Davkhur Brings to the Group
Spoiler
"Wait. 'Group?' Who said anything about a group? They better not be like that idiot I had to leave behind in the pit of dire maggots. Gods, that one was thick."
Ahem. Actually, Davkhur has a number of ways to enhance his allies' abilities in addition to the damage and crowd control his summons provide. He has greater magic weapon and magic vestment for all-day protection and enhancement. He also has two available castings of greater resistance, for those that neglected to grab a cloak of resistance.
He also has various sneaky spells available and can both find and eliminate traps. Notice I didn't say "disarm." He mostly just has his disposable elemental trip them. Though he doesn't usually prepare them, he has a decent variety of divinations available as well.
Finally, he has glibness to get us out of (or into) trouble.
Why Davkhur Is In Aerenal
Spoiler
He was paid to "recover" a religious artifact. I haven't decided what yet.
Future Development
Spoiler
"Development? You say that as though there's something wrong with me."
Shut up, Davkhur. As noted above, Davkhur is somewhat reluctant to treat those he doesn't know well as anything other than hirelings or patsies. Experience traveling with others might change this.
That makes it a lot easier, actually. I have UMD maxed right now, but with no Charisma bonus and no other UMD boosters, it's not reliable enough for battle. I'll still keep one rank for when/if I want to craft a Runestaff, and leave it be from there. I'll put those ranks into Disable Device, and I've got knock, so Open Lock is unnecessary. Mindsight mostly removes the need for Spot/Listen, but for if when () Lateral throws something with a non-RAW Darkstalker at us, someone else should have good mundane senses.
Oh, and Lateral's already seen this, but here is Davkhur's background from the Eberron game that fizzled out. A few things have changed: he doesn't have as high a level of spells as he did, he doesn't wear a Sentira breastplate (too expensive for level 8), and no runestaff yet (ditto). Davkhur speaks in Maroon:
My char has deceive item and maxed out UMD (+18 bonus), that is covered.
EDIT: he has a wand of CLW & Lesser vigor, is there anything else, i can proly change some stuff up. although 2nd level spells will proly be pushing it.
Lateral, do you allow in game crafting? if so, do you allow the xp alternate for crafting ?(1 xp = 5gp)
Lateral, do you allow in game crafting? if so, do you allow the xp alternate for crafting ?(1 xp = 5gp)
Check the first post; there's some incantations I 'brewed up specifically for this adventure. The first three replace the resurrection spells, the remainder are for crafting without an artificer.
Check the first post; there's some incantations I 'brewed up specifically for this adventure. The first three replace the resurrection spells, the remainder are for crafting without an artificer.
uMM...OK, I'm not super familiar with Incantations. How do they work? do you have to learn them via a feat or something else?
The rules are here. Basically, you make a series of skill checks. If you fail two in a row before getting the successes needed (generally 1 per spell level), it fails and something bad happens—in the case of resurrection something from Dolurrh comes back instead, in the case of recharging a wand several charges are drained and damage the caster.
They can have the same components as spells, plus Backlash (something bad that happens to the caster regardless of success or failure). And you don't need to do anything in particular to learn them, just have knowledge of them. Generally that requires a Knowledge check in a well-stocked library, but we're just assuming we all know these.
Oh, and the resurrection ones are kind of important, so it's a very good idea for multiple people to have decent Knowledge (religion) and Heal modifiers. Davkhur can handle the former; someone else needs to pick up the latter.
Edit:Oh, and as for other wands: I've got lesser restoration and have enough for another one. If no one else has a better idea, it'll be grease and I'll give it to one of the UMDers since I get bonuses to save DCs against enemies that have lost their Dexterity bonuses to AC. I can trigger that with Invisibility (and have 1/encounter single-round invisibility thanks to Swordsage levels), but it's nice to have another way to trigger it.
I'm thinking of choosing from grease, glitterdust, find traps, benign transposition, rope trick, or summon monster I for the wands. Primal instinct is also very nice to put in a wand. Maybe detect magic wand for magical traps and whatever.
EDIT: And here's my sheet. I could change the spells known and wands depending on what the others have.
First, I wanted to let you guys know that I'm heading to my Grandma's right after I finish writing the messages telling everyone I'm heading to my Grandma's. I'll have Internet while I'm there, but I'll be busy cooking, drinking, and eating, and just being with my family, so posting will be sparse until Sunday.
Second:
Quote:
Originally Posted by GuyFawkes
I'm thinking of choosing from grease, glitterdust, find traps, benign transposition, rope trick, or summon monster I for the wands. Primal instinct is also very nice to put in a wand. Maybe detect magic wand for magical traps and whatever.
I've got glitterdust and a decent Search modifier, plus plenty of slots for detect magic and/or arcane sight. Rope trick would be very nice.
I'm thinking of choosing from grease, glitterdust, find traps, benign transposition, rope trick, or summon monster I for the wands. Primal instinct is also very nice to put in a wand. Maybe detect magic wand for magical traps and whatever.
EDIT: And here's my sheet. I could change the spells known and wands depending on what the others have.
Your sheet is approved.
__________________
That whale is going to die, and it's Fullbladder's fault.
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Re: For Gold & Glory OOC
Re: For Gold & Glory OOC
by Recaiden//
) Lateral throws something with a non-RAW Darkstalker at us, someone else should have good mundane senses.
