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Post by Igordragonian on Aug 20, 2023 13:05:43 GMT -8
From the complete thief book,most kits looks just for flavor unless I got it wrong.
assasin is cool, but I imagine as heroic detecgives it wouldnt work greatly.
I was considering the trade, actually.
pest control, who is good with traps, so maybe he can help to catch our targets like the scooby doo gang.
there is a warrior kit who is good at training animals, and I had an image of owning pack of dogs for attack and tracking.
But I'l wait for Horizin, I guess
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Matt4
Paragon
Posts: 3,545
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Post by Matt4 on Aug 20, 2023 14:53:12 GMT -8
Sigh, I'm a bit sad about that money roll, I can't even buy an armor it seems.
Is there a difference between the various shields listed?
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Post by Daos on Aug 20, 2023 15:57:14 GMT -8
I actually like the surname "Qui'ara", Zemora Qui'ara sounds good!  so it's fine by me. As for her stats I have them down like this: STR 12 | DEX 10 | CON 10 | INT 10 | WIS 16 | CHA 9 (racial bonus already applied) Weapon prof I think are two? And I'll take hmm.. Long swords and stilettos (although I can't find those on the purpleworm website). Non-weapon prof I think are 3, and I think 2 more for Intelligence: Reading/Writing, Religion, Law, Healing Starting money: 3d6 x 10 I'm not sure about the languages..I guess I'll receive Drow for free, and then..I'm not sure Daemon definitely, and what about the others? Where are they spoken? Mechanically is there something else missing? I believe her CHA would be 8 (10-2 = 8), right? Stilettos are found in The Complete Fighter's Handbook. One costs 5 silver, weighs 1/2 a pound, is S-sized, does piercing damage, has a speed of 2 and deals 1d3/1d2 damage. It also confers a special +2 (non-magical) bonus to hit against certain armor types: Plate mail (bronze or normal), ring mail and chain mail. This is because the narrow point and blade slip in more readily through those types of armor.) Otherwise, it's basically a knife. The other Renosian languages (Bloodtooth, Umbran, Necrosian, Brimstone, Ignan, Nihilistan) are generally spoken in their respective countries (Bloodtooth, Umbra, Necros, Brimstone) or planes of existence (Ignan is Plane of Fire, Nihilistan is Negative Energy Plane). You can read up on the countries here. The languages spoken on other continents probably won't ever be used, but they can be taken anyway. From the complete thief book,most kits looks just for flavor unless I got it wrong. assasin is cool, but I imagine as heroic detecgives it wouldnt work greatly. I was considering the trade, actually. pest control, who is good with traps, so maybe he can help to catch our targets like the scooby doo gang. there is a warrior kit who is good at training animals, and I had an image of owning pack of dogs for attack and tracking. But I'l wait for Horizin, I guess Haha, yeah, some of the kits in The Complete Thief's Handbook are pretty superfluous. There's one I remember, Adventurer, that doesn't give you anything. No bonuses, penalties, special equipment, not even any free proficiencies. Just...completely pointless. Anyway, up to you. Like I said, even if we have no front-liners, the party can always recruit hirelings. If you want to wait for Horizon, though, I'll point out she probably won't even get started until her days off, which will be Wednesday or maybe Thursday, so you'll be waiting awhile. Sigh, I'm a bit sad about that money roll, I can't even buy an armor it seems. Is there a difference between the various shields listed? Yeah, that's the downside to the metal armor only restriction. But fortunately it's temporary; you just need to wait to build up some funds in-game. As for shields, yes. Bucklers are very small and can be strapped to the arm (meaning they don't take up a hand slot), however it only offers an AC bonus of -1 for a single melee attack (and nothing against ranged attacks) per round. Small shields allow you to carry something else in the shield hand, as long as it's not a weapon (a holy symbol, for instance, though). It can add a -1 AC bonus against two attacks per round. Medium shields take up the hand slot entirely (nothing else can be held) but have no limit to how many attacks they work against. Finally, body shields offer a -1 AC bonus against melee attacks but a -2 AC bonus against ranged attacks. However, it is quite heavy, and must be firmly fastened to the forearm and gripped to work. |
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Post by GravityEmblem on Aug 20, 2023 17:52:59 GMT -8
So I rolled a (4+1)x10 = 50 gold for starting wealth. For height and weight, I'll say 4'6' and 80 lbs--Nerisse is quite petite, what with her Strength penalty. For age, 21 years old--she ran from the Drow at age 18, and it's been a few years since then. Is there anything else I need besides equipment?
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Post by Daos on Aug 20, 2023 19:10:49 GMT -8
Aside from equipment...looks like all that remains is Alignment, birthday and her bio (Appearance/Personality/History).
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Post by Igordragonian on Aug 20, 2023 23:12:48 GMT -8
From what I see many kits are what called in 5e backgrounds.
Stuff like "You get +2 to reaction when engaging with this specific kind of people"
Some kits are minmaxing like the diplomat.
(Which you sort of can do anyway with the regular thief by moving percentage here and there.
Spy and assasian have useful stuff...
anyway, for this game I think I'll go with the pest controler or focus on traps, it would be a diffrent exprience from what I have played so far
So we play at Malaika?
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Post by GravityEmblem on Aug 21, 2023 3:31:01 GMT -8
Yeah, only a select few, like my Witch kit, are comparable to subclasses.
Birthday can be 10/31, if such a date exists, because she’s a Halloween witch. I wasn’t expecting to have to pick an alignment, but I guess I’ll go with Chaotic Neutral. Nerisse values freedom and self-expression; she doesn’t shy away from evil acts but isn’t motivated by them. I’ll work on bio and equipment later today.
By the way, are we just assumed to have the clothes we describe our characters wearing, or do we have to buy each article with our starting wealth?
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Post by Daos on Aug 21, 2023 14:56:08 GMT -8
anyway, for this game I think I'll go with the pest controler or focus on traps, it would be a diffrent exprience from what I have played so far So we play at Malaika? Pest Controller sounds fine. And yes, the city we will be playing in is Malaika, in the nation of Daemon. Birthday can be 10/31, if such a date exists, because she’s a Halloween witch. I wasn’t expecting to have to pick an alignment, but I guess I’ll go with Chaotic Neutral. Nerisse values freedom and self-expression; she doesn’t shy away from evil acts but isn’t motivated by them. I’ll work on bio and equipment later today. By the way, are we just assumed to have the clothes we describe our characters wearing, or do we have to buy each article with our starting wealth? Months only have 30 days each, so we'll say 10/30. And yeah, I'm sort of taking this back to the basics. You might have noticed I gutted most of my house rules for this one, keeping things as close to 'by the book' as I was able. The idea is to get a better feel for how the game is supposed to work, and then start working on modifying it again. So alignment is back. For now, anyhow. As for clothes, I've always allowed players to choose their default outfit for free. But any additional outfits you want you need to pay for. |
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Post by Igordragonian on Aug 21, 2023 20:36:50 GMT -8
Still need a name. um.
Alright,so pest control is it, and I would invest my NWP skills into what ever that build cages and traps.
(I think blacksmithing?)
and maybe animal training
Assuming we would have time between adventures to train animals.
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Post by Daos on Aug 21, 2023 20:45:49 GMT -8
I'd say building cages and traps would fall under blacksmithing.
And yes, there will be downtime between adventures. I just haven't decided yet how to implement it.
In my last Lost Souls game, I did it like in Radiant Citadel. We have a chapter with an adventure, then we have a chapter with downtime. So chapter 1 is an adventure, chapter 2 is downtime, chapter 3 is an adventure, and so on. The only thing is, it kind of felt like nobody really liked the downtime chapters? Or that was the impression I got.
So I might do it like in my Overmorrow game. Where downtime takes place OOC, between chapters, while we're leveling up and such.
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Post by GravityEmblem on Aug 22, 2023 4:00:19 GMT -8
Yeah, I didn't like the downtime chapters very much. Mostly because they were as long as the adventure chapters, but far less exciting, so it felt like the game skidded to a halt for several months. I often felt like there just wasn't much for me to do in those chapters--or that I was expected to come up with something to do, which I had trouble with. I'd really prefer if we didn't do full downtime chapters in this game; maybe just a specific scene or two if someone already has an idea in mind. At least for Gontoria, the main premise of that game was social climbing, making connections, avoiding scandal, etc., so the downtime chapters made perfect sense. The main premise of this game is solving mysteries, and I'm afraid that the downtime chapters would get in the way of that. Anyway, here's my bio! {Appearance}Nerisse has an extremely small build that she would describe as “petite.” (Her family would describe it as “scrawny” and “weak.”) She has shoulder length white hair that refuses to grow any longer, a long nose, and particularly big eyes. She typically wears an armless black robe decorated with silver-colored spiderwebs, long gloves and boots, and a big pointy, witchy hat. {Personality}While Nerisse was shy and reserved while living among the Drow, she’s become confident and somewhat mischievous ever since she started living as a woman. She has an incredibly sharp wit, which she uses to make jokes and puns that nobody else understands. She takes pleasure in playing up her witchiness to frighten civilians, but has a soft spot for people she perceives as misfits. Nerisse takes a great deal of pride in her appearance and invests a lot of time making sure she’s made-up and dressed to her liking. She also loves art and stories, but hates to analyze them. {Backstory}Nerisse was born as Soluun Qui’ara, the second child of a minor family in the House of the Dragon. Her parents lavished attention upon her sister, Zemora, as she was older and a girl. Nerisse—a “worthless male” with little physical prowess—was to be married off to another family to increase the Qui’aras’ social status. Nerisse was educated in how to be an acceptable husband, and hated every minute of it. She found herself envying and admiring the Drow women she read about in storybooks, and soon started fantasizing about wearing female clothing, teasing Drow boys, being born a woman…it was a form of escape for her. She learned quickly that such feelings were taboo among the Drow, and that openly expressing them would mean her death. She kept it a secret from her family, even Zemora—she only confessed to her closest friend, a Drow from House Serpent named Jaezel Liora. That was a mistake. On Nerisse’s 18th birthday, Jaezel told her parents about their son’s “deviant impulses.” The Qui’ara matriarch immediately had Nerisse arrested. Nerisse never learned why Jaezel betrayed her–spite? Greed? Pride? Disgust? Whatever the reason, Nerisse intends to kill her if they ever meet again.
While lying in the dungeons, terrified, scheduled for execution or worse, Nerisse was approached in a dream by a Fiend who called itself Karaida. It took on a female form not unlike that of a hag; a wise old woman with a warty nose and a talent for magic. Karaida offered Nerisse a deal–she would bestow upon her great magical power, enough to escape the terrible fate that befell her. She would give her magical items that would help her survive on the unfamiliar land of the surface. As a bonus, she would even alter her form, to make her body a better match for her ideal self. All that she asked in return was a small sliver of “that brilliant mind of yours,” to be borrowed each night and returned in the morning. Nersisse, desperate, agreed. Arcane knowledge that should have been earned from years of study rushed painfully into her mind in an instant, and magic flowed through her body, changing it–though it was still a male body, it had a much more feminine form than before. With her new power, Nerisse escaped, enchanting or killing the Drow guards around her. Then, she fled for the surface.
Without Karaida’s help, Nerisse would not have survived the surface. There were countless times when she was forced to go weeks without eating or drinking, gaining energy only from her ring of sustenance; times where she might have been tricked or manipulated to a grisly fate if not for her ring of truth; times when she was able to cause powerful people to cow merely by evoking Karaida’s name. She soon learned that her patron was something of a big name in the demon world, those “in the know” recognized her name, and knew not to mess with her. What concerned Nerisse is that she didn’t know how Karaida was so well-known…and what she did with her mind. Every night at sundown, she felt a part of her mind get ripped out, and forced to think strange, evil things not meant for mortal souls. She found herself whispering unsettling and mysterious phrases whenever she zoned out or slept during these nights.
For a while, Nerisse lived alone, on the run. But then, to her surprise, Zemora tracked her down. Even more to her surprise, her sister considered killing her for her “impulses” a waste of time, and resolved to remain in exile with her. The two sisters, resolving to stay together, made their way to Malaika in Daemon, eventually getting involved with a detective agency there.
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Post by Daos on Aug 22, 2023 12:09:18 GMT -8
It wasn't just you. I remember one person who straight up quit within weeks of joining over it. He said something like, "So the whole thing is just us talking to NPCs???" Which struck me as an odd thing to say about a political intrigue roleplaying game, but...
But yeah, I like the idea of downtime. I like the idea that the PCs have lives outside of adventuring; that they have normal jobs, and family and friends and connections to the setting. But also, I like the idea of time advancing between adventures. It always bothered me when I would start a game at level 1, and then within a few weeks, the party had advanced to high level. So I like having long stretches of time between adventures, where characters age and grow and build lives.
Maybe Gontoria's style would have worked better in a real time game. I did design Gontoria as a real time game (I hadn't had much experience with pbps at the point I created it).
With Radiant Citadel, I changed it so there's at least one minor quest in each downtime chapter. We'll see how that goes. For this game, though, I'll probably use the system I have in Overmorrow. Where downtime will just be handled between chapters, out of character. That works out in that it helps buy some time for me to work on the next chapter anyway.
Anywho, looks like that's it for Nerisse other than equipment. Her bio looks good.
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Post by GravityEmblem on Aug 22, 2023 12:56:29 GMT -8
How's all this for equipment?
Candles (x5) – 5 cp
Chalk – 1 cp
Iron Pot – 5 sp
Hooded Lantern – 7 gp
Healer’s Bag – 6 gp
Lamp Oil Flask (x3) – 18 cp
Anything else I'll need, like rations?
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Matt4
Paragon
Posts: 3,545
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Post by Matt4 on Aug 22, 2023 13:44:26 GMT -8
I actually like the surname "Qui'ara", Zemora Qui'ara sounds good! so it's fine by me. As for her stats I have them down like this: STR 12 | DEX 10 | CON 10 | INT 10 | WIS 16 | CHA 9 (racial bonus already applied) Weapon prof I think are two? And I'll take hmm.. Long swords and stilettos (although I can't find those on the purpleworm website). Non-weapon prof I think are 3, and I think 2 more for Intelligence: Reading/Writing, Religion, Law, Healing Starting money: 3d6 x 10 I'm not sure about the languages..I guess I'll receive Drow for free, and then..I'm not sure Daemon definitely, and what about the others? Where are they spoken? Mechanically is there something else missing? I believe her CHA would be 8 (10-2 = 8), right? I checked my notes and yeah, I made a mistake. I wrote down two 11s instead of a 11 and a 10..but I'm not sure if I'll put the 10 on CHA, maybe I'll put it in CON.. I need to think about it, neither of the things influenced by this are things I encountered as of now so idk if it actually matters. I feel a bit sick tonight so I won't be able to continue to create the character, but I wanted to ask: if I wanted to hire a male drow bodyguard to escort me on the mission and then keep him around to help me on the surface, how much will I need to pay him? |
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Post by Daos on Aug 22, 2023 16:15:40 GMT -8
How's all this for equipment? Candles (x5) – 5 cp Chalk – 1 cp Iron Pot – 5 sp Hooded Lantern – 7 gp Healer’s Bag – 6 gp Lamp Oil Flask (x3) – 18 cp Anything else I'll need, like rations? Two questions. First, what's a healer's bag? I'm not sure what book that is from. Second, does she carry all of that in her arms? Or does she have a pack or something? As for rations, you can buy some, but as this game primarily takes place in a city, it probably won't be necessary. If we go on an expedition outside the city, one could always stock up beforehand. Plus, her STR is so low that she falls into encumbrance if she carries more than 10 pounds, so you'll probably want to keep her weight down as much as possible. Her beginner's spellbook is 5 lbs, so that's half her weight right there. I checked my notes and yeah, I made a mistake. I wrote down two 11s instead of a 11 and a 10..but I'm not sure if I'll put the 10 on CHA, maybe I'll put it in CON.. I need to think about it, neither of the things influenced by this are things I encountered as of now so idk if it actually matters. I feel a bit sick tonight so I won't be able to continue to create the character, but I wanted to ask: if I wanted to hire a male drow bodyguard to escort me on the mission and then keep him around to help me on the surface, how much will I need to pay him? Generally speaking, it doesn't matter too much. Right now her CON is 10 and her CHA is 8. This means: * She can only be brought back to life 10 times * Her system shock is 70% * Her resurrection survival is 75% * She can have a lifetime limit of 3 henchmen * Her henchmen will suffer a -1 to loyalty/morale If you swap them, then her CON becomes 9 and her CHA becomes 9. Which means: * She can only be brought back to life 9 times * Her system shock is 65% * Her resurrection survival is 70% * She can have a lifetime limit of 4 henchmen Some things to consider, though. First, if she dies, she'll probably stay dead. As an elf, Raise Dead (5th level) won't work on her, so her only shot would be Resurrection or Reincarnation (both 7th level), which would be really tough to acquire at low levels. So worrying about how many times she can be brought back and whether she'll survive the ritual seems fairly moot. Her system shock is only different by 5%, which isn't really enough to worry about, in my opinion. So it really boils down to whether you care about having 3 henchmen with a marginal penalty to morale or 4 henchmen without the penalty. Now, as for your question. I'd say it depends on how important it is that the bodyguard be a drow. The DMG has prices for hiring individual soldiers, and those are what I'd use for a bodyguard hireling: And these are their basic rundowns: So on the surface, not too much. However, it's worth mentioning that the book assumes these are human soldiers. Drow are much more powerful and rarer than humans. For instance, a standard human soldier is worth 15 XP. A standard male drow warrior would be worth 650 XP. That's an increase of 4334%! The price of a drow bodyguard would therefore be 4334% higher. So while a human heavy footman would cost 2 gold a month, a drow heavy footman would cost (rounded up) 87 gold a month. So yeah, a drow bodyguard might be outside her price range for now. But a human one might be feasible. |
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so it's fine by me.
