Tabletop RPGs

[Gwardinen]

Oh don't take what I said as discouragement. Wild magic seems like it could be hilarious and interesting.

[Lu]

Could there potentially be a place for a Goliath Barbarian, or is that too much of a stretch for the setting?

[DanJW]

The nice thing about the setting is that almost anything can exist on an island somewhere. It's kinda like the Star Trek principle - travel by ship is fast, but each location is essentially isolated and unique.

Primal classes fit in best of any of the power sources bar martial. So no problem with barbarians.

Goliaths - sure I hadn't thought about them, but there are pigmies (haflings raftlings] so why not an island of really tall big bastards? He's going to cause comment when he steps off the boat, but that's just part of the fun

Toblix, no worries, we can work on his background between the group or we can find out who he is as we go - old-school style.

Have a look at the kind of thing Marek and Spaff and people wrote (they went slightly tongue-in-cheek, which is fine if you want to). Some possible questions to ask are:

• How did your PC become what they are (ie a sorceror)?
  
• How did he wind up here (sailing about looking for adventure)?
  
• How does he deal with people?
  
• How does he react to dangerous situations?
  

[Lu]

====== Created Using Wizards of the Coast D&D Character Builder ======

Charkaegh "Charlie" Shalestone, level 1

Goliath, Barbarian

Feral Might: Thaneborn Triumph

Background: Birth - Among Another Race (Among Another Race (Dwarf))

FINAL ABILITY SCORES

Str 20, Con 16, Dex 10, Int 10, Wis 8, Cha 11.

STARTING ABILITY SCORES

Str 18, Con 14, Dex 10, Int 10, Wis 8, Cha 11.

AC: 14 Fort: 17 Reflex: 11 Will: 11

HP: 31 Surges: 11 Surge Value: 7

TRAINED SKILLS

Nature +6, Endurance +7, Athletics +11

UNTRAINED SKILLS

Acrobatics -1, Arcana, Bluff, Diplomacy, Dungeoneering -1, Heal -1, History, Insight -1, Intimidate, Perception -1, Religion, Stealth -1, Streetwise, Thievery -1

FEATS

Level 1: Goliath Greatweapon Prowess

POWERS

Barbarian at-will 1: Howling Strike

Barbarian at-will 1: Recuperating Strike

Barbarian encounter 1: Great Cleave

Barbarian daily 1: Thunder Hooves Rage

ITEMS

Hide Armor, Adventurer's Kit, Greatsword

====== End ======

I made this! I'm still thinking about the background details, but I got a general idea.

[DanJW]

So that's two strikers. Do we have any defenders or leaders in the works?

[toblix]

Oh, I didn't even think about that. If there's a role that's typically unpopular, I can be another guy.

[Hermie]

I'm eyeing a Bard, which is a leader.

(Mostly because I love the idea of being able to play a Bard Warforged (Golem).)

[Snooglebum]

Probably about 6 players. Lets see who wants in and who can do what times - it might be that logistics does the lottery for us.

I could take on an assistant DM as well, which would make my workload easier, provide me with someone to scheme collaborate with and provide cover for when I can't make it.

I'd be happy to assistant DM, I've been running RPG's for as long as I've known what they are.

[Sombre]

If I wanted to join now, what exactly would I have to do?

[subbes]

(NVM, real life intervened.)

Edited May 9, 2011 by subbes

[Gwardinen]

I think right now we're mostly throwing character ideas around while DanJW figures out exactly how the campaign's going to work.

Since Snooglebum has now volunteered to assistant DM, I've actually come up with a character concept (or a second one, I had a warforged idea but I'll leave that to Hermie if he's into it). Since we have no controller ideas yet, I thought it would be appropriate to be a motherfuckin' wizaaaaaaaaaaaard:

Quelan Laerco, level 1

Eladrin, Wizard

Build: Illusionist Wizard

Arcane Implement Mastery: Orb of Deception

FINAL ABILITY SCORES

Str 10, Con 10, Dex 10, Int 20, Wis 9, Cha 16.

STARTING ABILITY SCORES

Str 10, Con 10, Dex 10, Int 18, Wis 9, Cha 14.

AC: 15 Fort: 10 Reflex: 15 Will: 16

HP: 20 Surges: 6 Surge Value: 5

TRAINED SKILLS

Perception +4, Arcana +12, Nature +4, Diplomacy +8, Insight +4

UNTRAINED SKILLS

Acrobatics, Bluff +3, Dungeoneering -1, Endurance, Heal -1, History +7, Intimidate +3, Religion +5, Stealth, Streetwise +3, Thievery, Athletics

FEATS

Wizard: Ritual Caster

Level 1: Phantom Echoes

POWERS

Wizard at-will 1: Illusory Ambush

Wizard at-will 1: Nightmare Eruption

Wizard encounter 1: Grasping Shadows

Wizard daily 1: Phantom Chasm

Wizard daily 1 Spellbook: Horrid Whispers

ITEMS

Spellbook, Cloth Armor (Basic Clothing), Adventurer's Kit, Orb Implement, Dagger

RITUALS

Comprehend Language, Dowsing Rod, Tenser's Floating Disk

The concept would be that Quelan was born and grew up in the feywaters, and during his occasional trips to the mortal realms he became obsessed with the idea that any reality containing both and other planes of existence (such as elemental realms) must be much more complex than most people accept. He began to experiment with stretching his consciousness far past the traditional understandings of reality using arcane magic. He also began to sail as far and wide as he possibly could, seeking to always experience new perspectives on existence. As a result, he is slightly unhinged but incredibly gifted at "enlightening" people using his magic. Usually this enlightenment results in extreme confusion, fear, often psychic damage, sometimes insanity and occasionally death.

[Sombre]

I've made my healery cleric type just now, a dwarf named "Gamlin Grayhammer" (Yes Dwarven alliteration)

How would I go about extracting it as a text doc like you folks?

[Gwardinen]

Check out the "Summary" tab in the character builder. It only summarises the system stuff, though, so if you wrote any cool shit in the information section about what a drunken lech he is, that won't come through.

[Hermie]

Ah, so if we have healing covered, I'll spec more towards buffing and controlling.

I've already spent an inappropriate amount of time thinking of my characters backstory. It's gonna be cool to play by post where you have time to think of cool thing to do or say.

We still need a defender type person, no?

[toblix]

As I said before, if you need a guy to cover some hole in the ideal party setup, I'll roll another dude. I have no attachment to my guy whatsoever, so the pain will be minimal.

[Sombre]

Gimlin Greyhammer, level 1

Dwarf, Cleric

Build: Devoted Cleric

FINAL ABILITY SCORES

Str 10, Con 12, Dex 11, Int 8, Wis 20, Cha 14.

STARTING ABILITY SCORES

Str 10, Con 10, Dex 11, Int 8, Wis 18, Cha 14.

AC: 16 Fort: 11 Reflex: 10 Will: 17

HP: 24 Surges: 8 Surge Value: 6

TRAINED SKILLS

Religion +4, Arcana +4, Insight +10, Heal +10

UNTRAINED SKILLS

Acrobatics -1, Bluff +2, Diplomacy +2, Dungeoneering +7, Endurance +2, History -1, Intimidate +2, Nature +5, Perception +5, Stealth -1, Streetwise +2, Thievery -1, Athletics -1

FEATS

Cleric: Ritual Caster

Level 1: Shield the Fallen

POWERS

Channel Divinity: Turn Undead

Cleric at-will 1: Righteous Brand

Cleric at-will 1: Gaze of Defiance

Cleric encounter 1: Shield Bearer

Cleric daily 1: Cascade of Light

ITEMS

Ritual Book, Adventurer's Kit, Morningstar, Holy Symbol, Chainmail

RITUALS

Gentle Repose, Arcane Mark

Edited May 8, 2011 by Sombre

[toblix]

Nice, but you should really post it in Comic Sans, to give it that roleplayey feel. You know, like an old roleplaying scroll?

[Sombre]

Nice, but you should really post it in Comic Sans, to give it that roleplayey feel. You know, like an old roleplaying scroll?

I'll go and get my teabags and candles to make it look like a pirate map

[Wubbles]

I'll be any sort of guy we need. I haven't played an RPG before, so I don't have any preferences.

[DanJW]

Ah, so if we have healing covered, I'll spec more towards buffing and controlling.

I've already spent an inappropriate amount of time thinking of my characters backstory. It's gonna be cool to play by post where you have time to think of cool thing to do or say.

You can never have too much healing! Besides Sombre hasn't gone all-out healing either.

Sombre, I don't plan on including a lot of undead, so you'd be pretty safe changing to a more healing focussed Channel Divinity power. On the other hand if fighting undead is something you especially want to do then you can always make an effort to seek them out.

I might tweak the dwarf culture a little - they still don't feel quite right to me. Still, the way they appear on the obsidian portal entry is pretty close. Altered a bit from standard D&D dwarfs, although it doesn't affect their stats at all. They're more like folkloric dwarfs.

Whoever takes the role of defender should probably have a little bit of experience, or at least be tactically savvy - the defender is most responsible for teamwork to ensure that the squishy people don't get stomped !

I guess I'll be talking to everyone before we start to clarify a few background details about your characters. This can be individually or as a group, as you wish.

Snooglebum, I'll get in touch with you soon to discuss the setup for the campaign and shoot ideas around. Once we have a whole party we can figure out an appropriate way to bring them all together. As I said before, if anyone has questions or ideas about the setting then ask away - it's all about the cross-pollination!

[Gwardinen]

For my character I'm curious about the feywaters. Do they technically exist on the same material plane as the rest of the world, or do you have to magically step/sail into them? Additionally, can they be reached from anywhere or does one have to go to a specific place or at least in a specific direction?

Generally speaking it might be useful to know a little about the specific area we'll be starting in so we can think about why we are there.

[DanJW]

For my character I'm curious about the feywaters. Do they technically exist on the same material plane as the rest of the world, or do you have to magically step/sail into them? Additionally, can they be reached from anywhere or does one have to go to a specific place or at least in a specific direction?

Generally speaking it might be useful to know a little about the specific area we'll be starting in so we can think about why we are there.

Good questions!

Fewaters/Feyshores and all the other things they get called, normally exist as "pockets", a wrinkle in the cloth of reality. A fey cave might be much, much larger on the inside than the hill it supposedly exists inside. They are generally accessed through a specific entry point, that is very difficult to find or even invisible. A group of fey islands might only be visible when approached from a certain heading. Some pockets may be accessible by different doorways that are leagues apart, or only accessible at certain times, or when carrying a particular herb. The 'key' might be anything.

A doorway into a fey realm can be identified by an arcana check. Fey races get a bonus.

While such places exist as discrete pockets, some powerful fey claim to know how to travel between them without going via the mortal world. This involves travelling through even more dangerous and magical landscapes/seascapes, that become more and more unpredictable until they completely break down into the Elemental Tempest (my version of the elemental chaos).

Most fey travel, if they need to, from pocket to pocket on certain dates in the dead of night, while all good mortals are sleeping.

The most likely starting place is going to be the Autumn Straits. It's a wide scattering of small islands roughly analogous to Iron Age Northern Europe, with a generally Gaelic flavour. More remote islands there are closer to bronze age. Lots of fey pockets.

Major exports are bronze, gold and silver, herbs and goats. There are a lot of goats.

It is also the region most recently affected by war - 40 years ago it was the subject of an attempted invasion from the North, by a massive army (of various races, mostly goblin-types and monsters) raised by a huge black dragon named Korth. He was defeated and his skull rests in the feast hall of the largest northerly settlement, Redgate.

To the North is the North Rime. It's a pretty dangerous place, with not many trade-lands and a lot of monsters.

To the South are the Asorl Seas, the most civilized area on the map. To the South-West are the Westerlies. The Autumn Straits trade with both - in a friendly manner with Sorlish and in a more black-market way with the Westerlies.

Edited May 8, 2011 by DanJW

[Hermie]

Here's what I have so far:

Entertainment Prototype #6, level 1

Warforged, Bard

Build: Valorous Bard

Bardic Virtue: Virtue of Valor

Background: Experimental Prototype

FINAL ABILITY SCORES

Str 11, Con 16, Dex 10, Int 14, Wis 12, Cha 16.

STARTING ABILITY SCORES

Str 9, Con 14, Dex 10, Int 14, Wis 12, Cha 16.

AC: 14 Fort: 13 Reflex: 13 Will: 15

HP: 28 Surges: 10 Surge Value: 7

TRAINED SKILLS

Arcana +7, Diplomacy +8, History +7, Bluff +8, Intimidate +10

UNTRAINED SKILLS

Acrobatics +1, Dungeoneering +2, Endurance +6, Heal +2, Insight +2, Nature +2, Perception +2, Religion +3, Stealth +1, Streetwise +4, Thievery +1, Athletics +1

FEATS

Bard: Ritual Caster

Level 1: Superior Implement Training (Accurate wand)

POWERS

Bard at-will 1: Cutting Words

Bard at-will 1: War Song Strike

Bard encounter 1: Victim of the Feywild

Bard daily 1: Slayer's Song

ITEMS

Ritual Book, Adventurer's Kit, Backpack (empty), Bedroll, Scimitar, Accurate wand, Leather Armor

RITUALS

Traveler's Chant, Glib Limerick

Entertainment Prototype #6 is a mysterious Golem from an ancient, mechanical island that is now mostly legend. He was built to be a jester for the luxury-loving wizards that were his creators. This means he is able to produce virtually any sound through a combination of internal pipes and arcana, with perfect pitch. He is also built to showcase a full range of emotion for storytelling purposes, and his stage training makes him a much more limber and smooth combatant than other Warforged, brandishing a scimitar in one hand, and a conductors wand to channel his magical songs in the other.

[DanJW]

For everyone, here's a couple of examples of how automata appear in the setting:

The king stared at the figure in astonishment. It walked with rapid strides, moving its head up and down, so that anyone would have taken it for a live human being. The artificer touched its chin, and it began singing, perfectly in tune. He touched its hand, and it began posturing, keeping perfect time...As the performance was drawing to an end, the robot winked its eye and made advances to the ladies in attendance, whereupon the king became incensed and would have had Yen Shih [Yan Shi] executed on the spot had not the latter, in mortal fear, instantly taken the robot to pieces to let him see what it really was. And, indeed, it turned out to be only a construction of leather, wood, glue and lacquer, variously coloured white, black, red and blue. Examining it closely, the king found all the internal organs complete—liver, gall, heart, lungs, spleen, kidneys, stomach and intestines; and over these again, muscles, bones and limbs with their joints, skin, teeth and hair, all of them artificial...The king tried the effect of taking away the heart, and found that the mouth could no longer speak; he took away the liver and the eyes could no longer see; he took away the kidneys and the legs lost their power of locomotion. The king was delighted.[4]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automaton#Ancient_automata

The Indian came forward and prostrating himself before the King, gave him joy of the festival and laid before him a present befitting [his dignity]; that is to say, a figure of gold, set with precious stones and jewels of price and holding in its hand a golden trumpet. When Sabour saw this, he said, 'O sage, what is the virtue of this figure?' And the Indian answered, 'O my lord; if this figure be set at the gate of thy city, it will be a guardian over it; for, if an enemy enter the place, it will blow this trumpet against him, and so he will be known and laid hands on.' The King marvelled at this and said, 'By Allah, O sage, an this thy word be true, I will grant thee thy wish and thy desire.'

Then came forward the Greek and prostrating himself before the King, presented him with a basin of silver, in whose midst was a peacock of gold, surrounded by four-and-twenty young ones of the same metal. Sabour looked at them and turning to the Greek, said to him, 'O sage, what is the virtue of this peacock?' 'O my lord,' answered he, 'as often as an hour of the day or night passes, it pecks one of its young [and cries out and flaps its wings,] till the four-and-twenty hours are accomplished; and when the month comes to an end, it will open its mouth and thou shalt see the new moon therein.' And the King said, 'An thou speak sooth, I will bring thee to thy wish and thy desire.'

Then came forward the Persian sage and prostrating himself before the King, presented him with a horse of ebony wood, inlaid with gold and jewels, ready harnessed with saddle and bridle and stirrups such as befit kings; which when Sabour saw, he marvelled exceedingly and was confounded at the perfection of its form and the ingenuity of its fashion. So he said, 'What is the use of this horse of wood, and what is its virtue and the secret of its movement?' 'O my lord,' answered the Persian, 'the virtue of this horse is that, if one mount him, it will carry him whither he will and fare with its rider through the air for the space of a year and a day.' The King marvelled and was amazed at these three wonders

http://www.al-hakawati.net/english/Stories_Tales/laila77.asp

So, such things are incredibly rare wonders of uncertain origin that fetch high prices amongst nobility. Iron is fairly rare so wood and leather (maybe stone, ivory, mother-of-pearl and shell) are going to make up the bulk of their parts.

[Hermie]

Ok, so who is left who is actively reading this thread? I think there are lots of people that showed interest early, but haven't said anything since then.

Make some noise!