Hey Nir - I was just checking out your swashbuckler, and I noticed a few things. You still mention HalfElf in a few places. Additionally, you have a Mithril shirt listed in your equipment, which is more expensive than your starting gold allowance, even with the Rich Family trait. Other than that, it looks great!
Also, Embir, you haven't missed overly much. I'm enjoying the potential for this first initial meeting: A Barbarian, Monk, Swashbuckler, Rogue, Cleric and a Bard walk into a bar. I think the "history" that we have together, insofar as why we are in HillHold, is that the Captain of The Guard (tm) has summoned help for a bit of a kerfuffle that has been going on.
There was a post by IH earlier on about having 150% of maximum starting wealth.
1.5 x [ 900gp + MAX( 5d6 x 10 )gp ] = 1800gp.
I did make one mistake though - I thought he only had 4d6 x 10gp. I'm actually supposed to have an extra 90gp. What to buy? I know a retainer.
Rase, both of those styles of Great Axe are in line with that area, but I see the head on #1 being about 50% larger and the one on #2 being 100-150% bigger. I'm not pushing for mics for this first session; my kids stole mine to play McDonald's Drive-Thru :D
Adorable! I'm actually torn now, between the Great Axe and the Bardiche. And dropping my Battleaxe to a Broad Axe like "this":http://www.medievalfantasiesco.com/Childrens/BeardedAxeComparison.jpg or "this":http://www.wealddown.co.uk/images%20shop/484%20Broad-Axe-1700.jpg
There are just too many choices! Do I go with a one handed bearded axe like this "guy":http://www.gransfors.com/htm_eng/produkter/replikor/bilder/tvaflikigskaggyxa.jpg ? I do think I like that Bardiche, though, despite it's prolific offering of anime upon searching for images. Gah! I'm so confused!
Do yourself a favor: lookup "druss the legend" in google. You'll get David Gemmell's best character's images of all time. BTW, he wielded Snaga - a demon possessed (a great big double axe).
IH, how's Maptools-101 coming along? Are you setup yet?
Ironhead - I love your idea, so consider it done! Hybrid weapon created, 100% mine :P I'm working on cleaning up some other images as well. Does anyone want any modification done for them while I'm doing it?
Nir - yeah it is. You can use TokenTool (same site as MT), to create them. If you need something else, let me know and I'll unleash my best graphics-fu on it. (I can't help it, when I get bored and have an empty wishlist this is what happens.)
I've always preferred character interaction to combat, and I've actually built my Barbarian to reflect that, in some ways. I'm just fiddling around with my weapon imagery because I want to see *what* fits my character - he doesn't have a knife, so he uses his axe to chop firewood, his throwing axes for preparing meals, etc. The Bardiche is a walking stick that doubles as a weapon. There is some joy into getting into scrapes, don't get me wrong, but I've always enjoyed who I've gotten into scrapes *with* rather than what I've gotten into scrapes *against*.
I've also always enjoyed puzzles, provided the solutions aren't too obscure. "Wait, you mean the wax cat on the third shelf in the library that was in the baron's castle, where we were thrown into the dungeon and escaped by digging a tunnel, completely *BYPASSING* the library... *that* wax cat had the key in it that was required to solve the puzzle?" ...a puzzle in the room with the wax cat is fine, however.
Still struggling to get everything ready with MT; I'm a dinosaur, guys :( Vandor, I'm going to try to keep it balanced. Combat is only important as a means to an end, imho. It's like the old addage of true power being in not using your strength. That's not to say that combat is an unfavorable option, just that the bottom line is accomplishing the goals of the adventure and sometimes they can be reached through other means more easily.
Nothing at the moment, just a lot of stuff that I have to work on and have ready. Unless you'd like to make the PC tokens, Rase. I'd appreciate that, if you have the time.
ahh yeah that was probably because Garaan let me borrow his list to make mine... Which is probably why there are some mistakes.. since I was changing everything >.< and I know I should take two weapon fighting and I will eventually the punching dagger is only there for emergencies it's in a special holster on her belt that allows her easy access to the weapon in case she's cornered and weaponless... it's also listed as offhand for when I actually take the feats required to use it in two weapon fighting
and her AC is 14 I just didn't list her padded armour for some reason...
Are there any rules you guys want to alter/play with? Or would you prefer to play with the rules as they are?
I have a couple of rules that I saw tweaked by other DM's for the sake of realism/gameplay.
Just think it might be better to discuss this now while we're still busy with character creation.
Here's one of mine (I do have more) regarding the Knowledge skill. This seems to be a skill that most players leave undeveloped due to restricted amount of skill points they have. It definitely does not make the top 10 of practical skills to have list. Most players have no ranks in it even at higher levels. The question that should be asked is: why do PC's have to allot any of their skill points towards developing most of the Knowledge skills at all? Doesn't a 10th level PC already know quite a bit about dungeonering? Has he not seen enough of the world through all of his travels to know about geography/locals/nobles? has he not fought enough monsters, priests and wizards to know something about arcana/religion? Maybe a better option is to give a rank for every level they have, free of charge, to depict knowledge they gained while adventuring.
Every high level fighter (with 2 ranks per level) reminds me of Schultz, the Nazi secretary from the movie To Be or not to be. His most frequent expression: "I simply know nossing about dis".
I prefer Sgt. Schultz from Hogans Heroes myself. I think the logic behind Knowledge as it stands is that, since it can be used untrained, everyone knows a bit about dungeoneering. But the person who devotes skill points into it (e.g. my Barbarian, who doesn't have ranks in Ride because of it), would be a better authority on the subject. I'm not the DM by any stretch of the imagination, but without knowledge skills to put ranks into (In my case, Nature and Dungeoneering), I'd be at max ranks at all skills except for 3, instead of 5. I agree that the PCs should learn while adventuring, but I don't know if that's the best way to reflect that.
I think we should really leave the rules as is, especially since, you might have noticed, yours is the ONLY character that didn't take at least one knowledge skill. That rule would benefit no one but you. Also, for your starting gold, first, you don't add the 900 to how much you start with, you increase your starting gold TO 900, and then, not sure if Ironhead meant for that to be doubled, or just the normal starting gold to be doubled. 1350 is a LOT for a first level character. might what to check with him.
Here's another one that I've seen discussed in many online forums regarding the Combat Expertise (CE) feat.
CE is really a form of fighting defensively (FD). It has the same effect: reduce one's attack bonus in order to better defend oneself.
It is really the educated way of employing FD.
As such, any character using CE should be considered to be fighting defensively (albeit the different bonuses/penalties gained).
Knowledge skills are important because like Rase said my Bard has the ability to become knowledgeable in any towns music scene.. the knowledge skills, in my opinion, are things that allow a character to have a higher than average knowledge of something like nature, magic or things like that... sure while adventuring knowledge would be gained but it wouldn't be a specific sort it'd be a vast sundry of different tid-bits from all our adventures... It'd be a sort of advanced General knowledge that you could apply to many different things to see if you have a chance of discovering what something is I think... but the DC would be higher to figure it out.. so if you wanted we could all get ranks in a knowledge (general) that would allow us to try and identify certain things... plus it'd be a lot more fair to people like me and Rase who expend points into knowledge sets to improve the roleplaying aspects of our characters...
I think it should be left as is, because then everyone would get your bardic knowledge ability, and that's BARDIC for a reason. If you want knowledge, then expend a skill point to get it. Especially with how we did our stats. I'm a monk and I get 8 skill points per level. not too shabby at all.
Comments
Let's see who can guess where the name comes from.
There was a post by IH earlier on about having 150% of maximum starting wealth.
1.5 x [ 900gp + MAX( 5d6 x 10 )gp ] = 1800gp.
I did make one mistake though - I thought he only had 4d6 x 10gp. I'm actually supposed to have an extra 90gp. What to buy? I know a retainer.
I removed all the half elven quirks out.
There are just too many choices! Do I go with a one handed bearded axe like this "guy":http://www.gransfors.com/htm_eng/produkter/replikor/bilder/tvaflikigskaggyxa.jpg ? I do think I like that Bardiche, though, despite it's prolific offering of anime upon searching for images. Gah! I'm so confused!
IH, how's Maptools-101 coming along? Are you setup yet?
I've also always enjoyed puzzles, provided the solutions aren't too obscure. "Wait, you mean the wax cat on the third shelf in the library that was in the baron's castle, where we were thrown into the dungeon and escaped by digging a tunnel, completely *BYPASSING* the library... *that* wax cat had the key in it that was required to solve the puzzle?" ...a puzzle in the room with the wax cat is fine, however.
and her AC is 14 I just didn't list her padded armour for some reason...
but thanks I fixed it up ^_^
maptool-1.3.b76.zip? Development build? or a release version?
All of these require Java 6+
I have a couple of rules that I saw tweaked by other DM's for the sake of realism/gameplay.
Just think it might be better to discuss this now while we're still busy with character creation.
Here's one of mine (I do have more) regarding the Knowledge skill. This seems to be a skill that most players leave undeveloped due to restricted amount of skill points they have. It definitely does not make the top 10 of practical skills to have list. Most players have no ranks in it even at higher levels. The question that should be asked is: why do PC's have to allot any of their skill points towards developing most of the Knowledge skills at all? Doesn't a 10th level PC already know quite a bit about dungeonering? Has he not seen enough of the world through all of his travels to know about geography/locals/nobles? has he not fought enough monsters, priests and wizards to know something about arcana/religion? Maybe a better option is to give a rank for every level they have, free of charge, to depict knowledge they gained while adventuring.
Every high level fighter (with 2 ranks per level) reminds me of Schultz, the Nazi secretary from the movie To Be or not to be. His most frequent expression: "I simply know nossing about dis".
CE is really a form of fighting defensively (FD). It has the same effect: reduce one's attack bonus in order to better defend oneself.
It is really the educated way of employing FD.
As such, any character using CE should be considered to be fighting defensively (albeit the different bonuses/penalties gained).
*Edit:* Still isn't showing up. All you have to do is re-upload it and I can take care of your token!