Forum: Public Forum

Paul,

Welcome.

This being a short week, and tomorrow being already Wednesday, I shall say "See you tomorrow."
We meet around 6.30 p.m. and start when the shop closes, as the owner is also a player.
I assume you have played D&D 3rd Edition/3.5 since you did not say anything about the gaming system. Obviously it would be even better if you know about Pathfinder RPG.

Books.

If you do not already own the "Pathfinder RPG core-rulebook" I would appreciate if you equipped yourself at "Vague Connections". There is a rebate for EMRPGG members and Amazon.co.uk does not provide us with a place to play.

If you come to like Rise of the Runelords, I shall encourage you to get books related to the campaign setting itself, the world of Golarion in the Pathfinder Chronicles line from Paizo publishing.

We only play with the base classes and not the "Advanced Player's Guide" at the moment. Although I am running a game, River Into Darkness, that uses only the classes from the APG. Prestige classes can be considered, we can talk about it tomorrow evening.

Character creation.

Prepare your character at home if you want but roll your dice in front of the group.
No need for complicated background, I do not require an essay. I will probably think of something to get your PC in the party anyway.
In fact, unless you are versed in Golarion's lore, I would advise against any prose.

Die rolls as follow:
Once 6D6, twice 5D6 and thrice the standard 4D6, best three dice of every throws of course.

At LV8 you get 33,000 gp worth of gear. I advise one stat boost, magical weapon and armour for martial type. Non-martial PCs can think about rods, better stat boosts and rings. A 5K diamond is also a good investment as a life insurance component for an adventurer's pension scheme.

Starting with you and whoever fills the additional free slot, I intend to limit min-maxing, and propose the following rules:

The highest roll should not be altered by a positive racial modifier, i.e. no stat of "20" before application of the points gained at LV 4 and 8 or magical items.
At LV8, you are entitled to a stat of 20 or more depending on how you spend your cash.
Example:
Rolls of 18, 16, 12, 12, 11, 10.
An Elf cannot have 26 INT at LV8: 18 +2 (racial) + 2 (LV4 +LV8 increases) + 4 (headband of vast intellingence +4) = 26.
The headband of vast intelligence +4 is pricey (16K) but affordable at LV8 (33K wealth by level).

With my new rule on min-maxing, the Elf from the example would have at most an INT of 24 by using the roll of 16.

I am doing this because adventures are designed with a standard party in mind, usually built along the elite array (15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8). The standard point buy of 15 can give the elite array.
My dice rolling rule potentially leads to more powerful characters. Some have managed an 8 on 6D6 though!

Character class.

After a drastic cull in the party due to real life impacting on the game, the party of intrepid adventurers is now reduced to:

Elswyn, Priest of Pharasma.
He has been around from the very beginning and earned his very first XP point killing Goblins.

Eigan, suicidal Ranger.
A brave man indeed, he has been back from the deads once and enjoyed many a trip beyond the veil of 0 HP.

Marcus, Thief extraordinaire and safety officer.
His owner is currently away in Australia, so it is getting played by others at the moment.
Marcus is now specialising in deadly dancing, always striving for those elusive extra D6s of added damage, on which he manages closer to multiple ones that sixes usually.
Marcus has taken his own life once after a series of bad saving throws.

Guideon, the quiet Fighter.
Pretty good with a bow, deadly with a sword and hard to hit, he is technically again the "new guy" after the departure of the Paladin and Sorcerer.

So, basically the party is short on Arcane might. Marcus can use wands thanks to use magice device but seems to have developed a self-defeating hopelessness with regards to their use: "Why bother? I will roll a 1".

A Bard would be fun, and at LV8 the class has a decent access to Arcane spells.
The Pathfinder RPG Bard has more options than the 3.5 one, thus could be more interesting to play.

Wizard and Sorcerer would be much appreciated by other party members.

However, you can play whatever you want really as lacking Arcane capabilities is not as bad as lacking Divine spells (healing, protection and buffing-up).

See you tomorrow,

Laurent,