OOC Character Creation

We will use this thread exclusively for discussing character creation, party composition, etc. so as to not muddle the OOC Chat with this very temporary/moment in time but discussion heavy topic.

Here's the pertinents:

1. Starting at level 1.

2. 27 point buy for stat generation.

3. All published AIME materials from Cubicle 7 allowed.

4. We begin play in the Gondorian port city of Pelargir, so your characters must have a reason to be there. (Please reference the IC Resource Thread for more on Pelargir, and feel free to ask for my thoughts/ideas/assistance on that or any other character creation matters.)

I think that's it? And if not, just ask.

Let's go!

Thank you for the invite @emsquared

Will work on my character over the next couple of days. I found a .pdf copy of the Cubicle 7 AIME players guide, so I will get familiar with that, and come up with an idea for a character.

Really looking forward to the game!

Amazing, thank you for the invite.
Will get a good read of the races and classes available, then I'll be sure to pitch something here

Sounds great, thank you all for your interest!

@emsquared, thanks for inviting me. May I have access to the Cubicle 7 materials? I’ll be reading up on Gondor this evening.

Ok, apparently the Share setting was set to me having to add you/your email. But now that should be changed so that all your have to have is the link.

Please try again and let me know if it works?

Sorry!

OK, I have thought of a character concept:@emsquared Is this something that could work for your story?
Looking at the Cultures, the closest would be something based on Men of Minas Tirith, but I am a bit lost for Classes that could fit this concept. maybe Treasure Hunter (but in the making)?

Sounds great!

As for class, Treasure Hunter might seem the best narrative fit initially, but seeing as we're starting at Level 1, I don't think Warrior would be out of line either if there's a play style there that interests you more. He could easily "grow into" the Warrior "mold".

Also, you say "your story" and... I mean, you're not wrong.

This is a fairly linear campaign. Certainly not a sandbox. I've frankly found that pbp works best when there is a decently well defined goal... but also, I am easing back into DMing pbp after some life disruptions, and so it allows me the bandwidth to do this at all by having a linear campaign that doesn't require my constant adaptation.

But, ofc those words still hurt a bit for any DM to see, I do want this to still be a shared storytelling experience.

And so I do maybe just want to say, my view on linear campaigns is that instead of player agency determining necessarily where the campaign goes at a macro-scale, player agency lies most focused upon how any given situation is addressed. And it is my job to see any given situation as an open-ended "puzzle" to be solved creatively.

I want you all to be able to see your ownership of the story and the impact of your choices upon the story.

And I hope you will once we start play.

OK thanks, I will take a look at both classes' features and put together a 27 points character.
Is there a Gamersplane custom character template we can use, for AIME ?

After looking over the two optional rules you plan to use, I am excited to see them in action.

@emsquared: what you said makes sense. I think we all play an adventure knowing it is a story created by the DM, and our contributions help the DM make it an epic adventure to remember. So a team effort :-)

I have the basics of a character, but just need to read thru more of the material in the players guide. Going to go with a human, native to Pelargir. Just have to work on the background to select a Culture, etc

It looks like in the past I've just used the default 5E one, but I think we can add Skills to the sheet (or at least we used to have that functionality, not sure if it's still there), and that's the only major mechanical "add" to the sheet.

Virtues = Feats

Shadow I have just tracked in the Notes section.

Hey gang,

Just wanted to bring up something, there is an errata document that was released for the Players Guide that touched on a few different things, and an optional errata/rule variant released as a part of the Eaves of Mirkwood campaign set which is primarily a change to the Scholar's healing abilities.

I think the biggest impact of any of those is to the Scholar, and if I recall, they "fixed" an issue where the Scholar's healing abilities started out really, really weak - but then scaled very quickly so as to be completely OP.

The Eaves of Mirkwood ability variant starts out as a better ability, and doesn't scale so absurdly.

If they come up, we'll probably use both these documents as the effective RAW.

I'm currently trying to upload them to the drive folder I have linked in the OOC Resource thread, but an having troubles. I will get them up eventually.

Just wanted to make you aware of these as they could effect your character creation/mechanical expectations.

Thanks for the invite. Happy to be onboard.

The character I'm think creating is a Dunedain, ranger of the North, visiting Pelargir on an errand. He is traveling secret and incognito of course, often being mistaken for a vagabond.

Hey Stefron!

@emsquared Understood about the Scholar errata, and confirming that the reference books link is now working.

I going to give warrior a try. Will update when I get more details.

DM, would a Scholar be useful for any adventuring party that might come together in the great port city of Pelargir?

I think so!

There are no caster classes in AIME, and Long Rests are harder to get, AND there are many other ways to spend HD in AIME, and so their healing abilities can be absolutely clutch.

They can also do some "Face"/social skill stuff (and ofc knowledge), which in a game where combat might be de-emphasized a bit, this can open the door to more spotlight for that play style.

If you read around about AIME, or listen/watch any podcasts/actual plays, you may hear that Scholar is THE under-powered class out of all the revised classes. And I think this is accurate from a combat perspective. But there are ways that I can help compensate that kind of deficiency too...

So far, it sounds like we have:

Mnrtoler - a warrior for sure

Dr_B - maybe a treasure hunter/maybe a warrior

Stefron - maybe a wanderer (i.e. ranger)

With 6 players I think it would be a shame if we didn't have a Scholar, so why not you? ;D

Thanks DM, ok, I'll go for Scholar :-)

Decided I will go with a native of Pelagir, who is a Warden. Just working thru all the other class attributes now.

I know these are all new looks at "Races", and different takes on old classes, and things - i.e. just a lot of reading for you all to know what you're getting into, so I thank you all for the efforts you're putting into making choices and getting things moving!

Well thank you for putting it all together

I echo @mnrtoler

Here, here

My pleasure, truly. I enjoy campaign and adventure prep.

But you are all most welcome.

I am settled on a Rider of Rohan. Warrior or Slayer are the obvious classes to me, but I need to review the classes more.

OK, after looking at the options, for Cirion the ropemaker I am going for-

Culture: Man of Minas Tirith,
Class: Treasure Hunter,
Background: Lure of the Road

I am travelling tomorrow, but should be able to get the character ready by this Friday

Oooo, I've not had the opportunity to use, or see anyone use, material from the Rohan Region Guide, so I'm excited about this :)
That timeline is no problem at all, for anyone still working. If we can complete character creation by the end of next week, I'll be happy.

The first person who expressed interest was Kilikina through private message before I'd even made the recruitment thread, and they haven't even accepted my invite (nor been online since they PMed me), so I will give them one week to accept before I recind the invite and look for someone else.

Right, I have most of the character figured out, just need to re-read the section on skills to make sure I got that right.

Culture: Man of Minas Tirith,
Class: Warden
Background: Lure of the Road (The Background was tough to find as her WIS and INT are quite low/average)

Should be done by end of this week.

Awesome.

No rush. But thanks for your diligence!

@emsquared: I have submitted my character for you to check over whenever you get a chance. I think I got everything done, and done correctly

She is "Man of Minas Tirith", native to Pelagir, and a Warden. Her backstory is not fully fleshed out yet, but basically;
Mother from Eastwold, Father from Minas Tirith, and 2 brothers. Father is a merchant, trading in exotic goods brought in by a trading ship sailed by her 2 brothers. Seònaid, the youngest of 3, grew up on stories brought home by her father when he still sailed, and from her mother of her homeland in Eastwold. This inspired her to travel, leaving home at a young age with her father's trading partners, and now she has grown to become self-sufficient and often travels alone. Back to Pelagir for a visit home to see family, and share what she has heard from her travels.

I'll take a look over the coming days, thanks!

More work to go, but I've decided on:
Name: Éothain
Culture: Rider of Rohan
Class: Warrior
Background: Seeker of the Lost
Cultural Virtue: Old Songs and Children's Tales

I’m only reading stuff related to character creation. Do I need to read anything else?

TLDR on the whole thing could probably be summarized by two things: 1 Skills/Proficiencies are more important, and 2 Wisdom is important for Every. Single. Character.

More specifically...

AIME added several, basically, mini-games to 5E in an effort to make the game flow and "perform" in a more Tolkienian fashion.

These mini-games impact how you will likely be able to perform, mechanically, during adventures, and impact how long your PC may "live" (i.e. how long you get to play them for).

I am also, as mentioned in the recruitment thread, going to use a version of Skill Challenges. Probably pretty heavily. Another mini-game that does not flow like, and prioritizes different things than, vanilla D&D.

I would recommend at a minimum reading about the following two subjects from the Players Guide, as you cannot avoid participating in them:

The Journey Phase

The Shadow

As well as my rules for Skill Challenges in the OOC Resource Thread.

Some other things that you might want to know.

I forget which class you're pursuing off the top of my head, but Audiences are another mini-game that can be important to understand.

And the Fellowship Phase is new mini-game that replaces Downtime and can provide some really neat opportunities for character development, or they can be a complete waste of time.

Long Rests are different/harder to get.

Exhaustion is a big thing/very common Condition to get.

What else...

EDIT: HD are a resource used fir more things than just healing on Short Rests (all in all healing is harder).

Basically, if you care much about the game portion of the game, and being able to create a character that performs well mechanically in the things that are important in AIME, it would behoove you to understand how these new mini-games and other systems changes work.

If you're cool with taking game mechanics changes as they come, and won't complain when something you didn't know about causes you trouble?

Don't worry about it.

@emsquared: thank you, that really helps. Will re-read those sections in the PG again so they soak in.

I skimmed most of that. Will look more into if I get time. Otherwise I am fine with it hitting me blindly haha.


Also working on character sheet slowly, but here is the current overview.

Ragnarr is a Men of the Lakes warrior with the background of Hunted by the shadow and shield fighting culture virtue. He is nothing special, but during a battle was in the right place at the right time to deal a devastating blow to a higher up in the Shadow armies. This caused him to be a marked man. His only remaining family is his mother, sister, brother-in-law, and a niece and nephew. He has always sent them money during his time in the army, but now he is a marked man and does not dare to go home unless he knows it is safe.

Actually remembering I am already playing a combat heavy character in a role play heavy game my culture virtue will instead be Merchant Prince giving me a servant that gives more skill based bonuses.

Was just taking some early looks at the character sheets up on the game page, and I realize folks may still be fine tuning as the talk about AIME's changes develops.

But @Drakis2,@therecusant I don't think I am able to get to where you guys currently have your ability scores using the point buy guidance from the phb and cultures from the players guide.

Just as a refresher, here are the base ability scores you can purchase, and the cost of each from the 27 point buy budget:

Ability Score | Point Buy Cost
8 ........................0
9 ........................1
10 ........................2
11 ........................3
12 ........................4
13 ........................5
14 ........................7
15 ........................9

The methodology is purchase your base ability scores first, using the point buy budget, then apply culture ability bonuses.

Here is a screenshot to show where my scores come from and shows a website everyone can use to figure out theirs prior to adding their bonuses.

And yes I made the most rounded out Warrior ever.

@emsquared: So this is how I ended up where I am, and let me know what I did wrong

With a 27 point buy for stat generation I went for;
STR 13
DEX 14
CON 13
INT 10
WIS 11
CHA 13

Human gave me a +1 in each Stat, bring it too;
STR 14
DEX 15
CON 14
INT 11
WIS 12
CHA 14

Then I added the Warden bonus to DEX, INT, & WIS
"Ability Score Increase – Your Intelligence score increases by 1 and you may increase any two additional ability scores by 1."
STR 14
DEX 16
CON 14
INT 12
WIS 13
CHA 14

Did I do that incorrectly. I checked my figures on a character generator as well aidedd.org Character Builder

EDIT:
Just checked them on chicken-dinner 5e as well, and they look okay? But not sure now?

@emsquared ah! Yes, I went wrong - I've not used point-buy before and I assumed buffing to 14 cost 6 points rather than 7, and similarly, a 15 would cost 7 rather than 9. Will re-allocate now

You get a culture instead of a classic dnd race. That’s should be where the three +1s came from not warden.

@emsquared: Here goes:

Point-Buy

STR 8 + 2 (cost 2) = 10 (2/27)
DEX 8 + 2 (cost 2) =10 (4/27)
CON 8 + 5 (cost 5) = 13 (9/27)
INT 8 + 6 (cost 7) = 14 (16/27)
WIS 8 +7 (cost 9) = 15 (25/27)
CHA 8 + 2 (cost 2) = 10 (27/27)

Add Men of Minas Tirith Traits

STR 10
DEX 10
CON 13 + 1 = 14
INT 14 + 1 = 15
WIS 15 + 1 = 16
CHA 10

Is that correct?

Character submitted for review. Still need equipment selected, but core stuff is finished

Yea @Mnrtoler has the right of it.

Your distribution is the correct start:

STR 13
DEX 14
CON 13
INT 10
WIS 11
CHA 13

But there is no Race in AIME, only Culture. So you do not get the +1 to all as per a 5E Human.

You get the +1 INT, +1 any other, +1 any other, from Man of Minas Tirith. Culture replaces Race.

Warden, your Class, gives no Ability Score bonus.
Yup!

EDIT:

Ooops! Apologies! I have corrected the Stats and any bonus' from the old/incorrect Stats. Hopefully it is all correct now.

Character submitted, but I'm still working on it. Not sure yet what Éothain is seeking under his "Secret of the Lost" background. I am leaning toward a location, such as a hero's forgotten burial place, as opposed to a particular item. I am thinking his search for this is what brings him to Pelargir.

Haven't taken a deep dive into much beyond ability scores, but everything's looking good for those who've submitted characters and made revisions.

Thanks for your work on this gang!

I have submitted Duinhir, Dunedain ranger of the north, for review.
Still need to fill out equipment and back story but the basic should be there. I not very familiar with D&D, so if I did something wrong let me know.

@emsquared so question about inventory. Do we just take what our class give us per our standard of living or can I switch some things around. Like ring mail which is ac 14 and has stealth disadvantage for a corslet of mail which is is 13+ plus dex and has no stealth disadvantage. Corslet of mail is actually in a lower standard of living than my culture.

By my calcs, Stefron, you still have 1 point to spend on your Point Buy ability score distribution to use.

There really aren't any great distributions that you can arrive at with Point Buy to convert 4, +1s to an all-even set of ability scores. So you may just have to turn 1 of your 12s to a 13. But there are other ways to play around with it too (maybe makes getting 2, 15s slightly less painful), and/or I think there are some Virtues that grant a +1 to some abilities, so just take another look and see what you want to do. Yea, in AIME your starting gear is rather "locked in" by your Culture (Standard of Living) and Class.

I've never read anything official on it, but my take on the approach is, in addition to using Standard of Living/Equipment and Class to try to "enforce" another element of the feel of Tolkien's Middle-earth, there is less gear in AIME, less general wealth, and less magic/magic items and things. And so they kind of scaled starting gear back to still allow room for equipment to be a part of progression.

As a Warrior, I would look at it like: you probably didn't buy your own gear, you either inherited it from a dead relative, or you were handed it by your town when you were conscripted that time during or in preparation of an orc raid that may or may not have happened. Something like that.

You are welcome to sell starting equipment at 50% cost before we begin play, and purchase something else/other things with that money. But I don't know if that will get you your corslet.

Appreciate it, but no it will not. The starting equipment is fine just thought I’d ask. That is a very nice way to think of it in character though.

OK I submitted a filled in DnD character template for Cirion, please check for errors @emsquared

Your ability scores look good @Dr_B.

I'll give everybody's characters a deeper look tomorrow and in the early part of next week.

I think we should be in game by Weds at the latest!

@Mnrtoler - all good

@Drakis2 - looks like you need to add Traditions Skill from your Class

@Stefron - did you possibly intend to mark proficiency in Perception instead of Persuasion? Otherwise I'm not sure where Persuasion came from. Also, because you get Survival, automatically, from Culture and Class, you may choose a different Class proficiency to replace that 2nd Survival.

@therecusant - looks good, maybe just write down your class abilities (Healing Hands. etc) and additional Class equipment which you maybe just hadn't gotten to yet

@Dr_B - you need to record your Animal Handling and Survival proficiencies from your Background. And instead of describing your Expertise skills as "doubled" go ahead and just double your proficiency bonus for them and add the ability score modifier (so 4+ability mod)

@rpgventurer - all good

And various ones of you still need to do some "house keeping" stuff (record AC yada yada), but no big deal there.

All of your characters have been approved, as all changes to be made are just additions/omissions.

Go ahead and roll for your starting money here in this thread and I'll work on getting the first IC thread ready and posted, and we'll be begin play!

Thank you all again.

Just want to check the starting money is as listed in the AIME players guide, and not the D&D 5e players guide? Is that correct, as the starting money is different in each, e.g. Men of Minas Tirith (5d6 silver pennies) vs Ranger (5d4 x 10 gp)

I have added the Skill 'Traditions'

Yup, please use the AIME value for your pocket change roll.

Brilliant, thank you. Seonaid has 16 silver pennies. Rich beyond her wildest dreams!! Lol!

Cue Pink Floyd’s "Money" . . .

I did indeed mean Perception instead of Persuasion, just ticked the wrong box (and definitely not Percussion as I wrote in the notes)

Instead of the second survival I'll go with Tradition.

Okay, I hadn't used the 5E character sheet on a long while so that's my bad. Thanks for trying.

Nearly ready with the IC thread folks.

Hope to have it up in a couple hours.

Hey @GreyWord, I saw you accepted the invite.

If you don't have access to the AIME material, there is a link to readable docs in the OOC Resource Thread.

And if you have any questions about the cultures or classes, or the group composition, or basically anything, just let me know.

Thanks!

A few quick tips for you greyword. Cultures replace races, each culture has a standard of living that determines starting equipment from your class, and each culture tends to give you a cultural virtue(feat) so make sure to check those out when considering culture.

Hi. Thanks for invite. I've just realized this AIME is more than settings. Looking into 200 page players guide will take me some time before I can have any questions. Even more time to understand why would my PC need to be in Pelargir if that is still required.

Perhaps you could help me by limiting culture and class that would allow you to easier incorporate my PC into the story? i.e. if it is best for me to chose Man of Rohan I would. It would limit the reading I need to do to finalize my PC

Well we all want you to play what you want, but scholar was the class we lost.

Heh, yea, it's a pretty hefty retooling of 5E really.

Taking some time to get you a character that you want to play is something I want you to do, to the degree that you want to do it. Part of my "plan" (if it can be called that, given the short notice on all this) includes a way to work you into the story easily enough at a later time.

So don't worry about consuming all the changes and pumping out a character immediately. I would anticipate at least two weeks of play (since we've started the story) would have to go by before I'd have to come up with something different to work you in.

No rush.

Broadly there is no Culture or Class that necessarily makes any more sense than another, based on the premise of the beginng of the story. That is aside from maybe Man of Minas Tirith culture anyway, purely because of geography. But we've already got 3 of those, so i'd actually encourage you to NOT play one of them, just so ppl can see more of the game, so to speak.

Other than Minas Tirith we have a Dunedain and Rider of Rohan. So no Hobbits or Dwarves or Elves. Which is fine, but does open up an opportunity for you to bring a little bit more of the fantasy side of Tolkien to the story if that interests you.

I know you said you weren't much of a Tolkien fan, but his fantasy races are (as you may know) really just the prototypical Halflings, Dwarves, and Elves of D&D/much of the other fantasy that came after.

As for classes... Warrior is pretty much a straightforward Fighter, Slayer is pretty much straightforward Barbarian, and Treasure Hunter is pretty much straightforward Rogue. But otherwise, not much of the core Race and Classes remain.

That said, Warden is Bard-ish. Wanderer is Ranger-ish. And Scholar is a Healer and/or "Face"-type class. There are no casters. No player-magic.

We lost our Scholar, and we don't have a Slayer. But every other class is represented right now. I mention this in case wanting to do something different than everyone else factors into your choice. (note: that doesn't NEED to be a factor, there's no problem with doubling up).

I'll PM you more deets about how/when I would see you most easily being brought into the story, as it would just be a bit spoilery for what is about to happen in the opening scene of the story.

Thanks for your interest!

I had problem reading Tolkien, but I do love the world he created.
Role-play wise I would prefer playing a typical Tolkien dwarf if (quoting guide) PC "at odds with other Free Peoples" would fit the story. I can't imagine class but warrior for Tolkien dwarf. Details to follow.

Hah, fair enough.

At odds is fine, so long as it doesn't prevent your dwarf from working with the group.

Dwarves may be "difficult" with/to other cultures, but it's always been because they see them as silly or short sighted or nosey or conniving, etc. Not because they have outright enmity with them.

With the exception of Evil Men/people corrupted by the Enemy, I can't think of any instances of war between dwarves (or any Free Peoples) and any other group of Free Peoples in all of Tolkien's lore.

We do have two Warriors already, but both are Duelist fighting styles (and chose largely different skill sets), so there's still plenty of room for different play styles I think if that's where you want to go with your dwarf.

Hey @GreyWord just wanted to check in, see if you had any questions, or needed to discuss any of the things new in AIME or my chosen house rules etc?

i had a meta question. I was wonwring why in a game advertised as combat less you suggest fighting style as important difference.

I am actuallly looking into schoolar but had problem visualise dwarf in leather. It took me few days to buy into the idea and begin to like it.

Anyone please inspire me choosing between Erebor schoolar or Iron Hills slayer.

Never once said it was combat-less (assuming you mean ZERO combat, by that).

Here, I pulled this quote verbatim from the recruitment thread. My direct reply to you actually:
Narratively, a dwarf of Erebor could make sense, easily. Because after Smaug took over their mountain, they had to flee. Some went West to the Blue Mountains, some went East to the Iron Hills. Makes sense some went South.

OK, will try to not let you down with my weak at combat scholar PC, hopefully other PCs could do the damage in a fight.

@Mnrtoler,@Drakis2,@Stefron,@Dr_B,@rpgventurer,@GreyWord

Hey all, I never mentioned this, and I didn't even look to see what ppl did when I was reviewing character sheets. But just wanted to say you all begin with max HP I've anyone did anything else.

GreyWord, Onar looks good, however because you have some overlap in automatic Proficiencies gained from culture and background, you may select one additional Skill Proficiency from your Class.

generous. Picked riddle.

My character has max HP at 9 (1D8 +1 for CON bonus)

looks like I've done this correctly too, thanks for checking.

I did max too

@GreyWord since you're a Scholar, and because you came in after I first mentioned it, I wanted to draw your attention to the Optional rules for the Scholars healing abilities that were provided in the Eaves of Mirkwood campaign errata in case you hadn't seen it.

We will be using those rules.

Thanks I missed that indeed.
May I ask you to clarify the that though It say Hands of a Healer is only replacing the first paragraph and it talks about 1d6. But second paragraph explicitly mention 1d8 twice. Should I assume that both 1d8 are to be changed to 1d6 in the second paragraph as well?

Heh, good question.

I'll have to dig into it, I haven't looked at this in awhile.

I just know there was a community consensus that the vanilla ability was poorly written, and C7 revised it, and the revision is generally viewed as better.

But I forget what the actual fixes were.

If you're on reddit, you may be able to find an explanation on the r/AIME subreddit. But I will look too.

Ok so I think the answer to your question is, yes, both of those 2nd 1d8s should be changed to 1d6 as well, because they are both in reference to ways to use/manipulate Healing Die. Which is what was changed to 1d6 in the first paragraph.

Poor C7, they mostly did a great job with AIME imo, but they did struggle in a couple places, mechanically, and just with general editing.

Thanks for confirming my assumptions (and backing up my opinion) I've added tailored feature description to my PC charsheet

Oh everyone I determined if you edit a skills name and put (+/- #) after the name then whatever is in the parentheses is what modifier it will give you from your character sheet

Never thought that my "fighter" would be the character most likely to become the spokesperson of the group haha

I realized I was not completely following the quest idea. Could we recap please?

we believe children were taken to a ship, that ship then sailed south down the coast. So we are expected to either find a ship that would get us that direction or what?
We are also expected not to contact the family, right?

Mission brief is indexed in these posts from the Gondor Commander:

https://gamersplane.com/forums/thread/29933/?p=1449249#p1449249

https://gamersplane.com/forums/thread/29933/?p=1449557#p1449557

https://gamersplane.com/forums/thread/29933/?p=1449964#p1449964

https://gamersplane.com/forums/thread/29933/?p=1450728#p1450728

https://gamersplane.com/forums/thread/29933/?p=1451178#p1451178

Oh I've just realized abduction happened in Gondor not Umbar.
OK let me rephrase. Two questions
1) Does "sailed south down the coast" definitely mean "toward Umbar"?

2) What are we supposed to do? Seek info on "ship under a Southron state flag of trade" in Umbar? Is it something unique or most of them bear such a flag?

Conclusion: Loremaster already shared with you info about Corsair Ship Lords feuding, but I expect other PCs to take lead on planning course of actions and ask Ónar to be their guide.

The LM can better answer your questions, but here is my punt;
1) we just know the ship went south. Because we do not know who is involved in the kidnapping we cannot determine their final destination yet. But Umbar is where the diplomat is stationed so it is a good place to start

2)We are supposed to find out who did this, locate them, and rescue the children. The peace is tenuous between Gondor and Umbar, so we need to avoid doing anything that threatens it further. Lots of traders visit Umbar, so it will not be an easy task finding the kidnappers. But that is the whole point of the scenario. As the LM mentioned this is as much about investigation and research as it is about any combat.

Hope that helps get you up to speed? As I said @emsquared can give more detailed reply

Known knowns:

1. The ship was of a model commonly used by Corsairs in the past specifically because it travels up rivers easily.

2. You know the name of the ship, and Seonaid's contacts told you it likely hasn't been a merchant ship for long because they didn't recognize it and they're in the foreign goods business.

3. Corsairs organize and live in Umbar.

4. The other stuff you each mentioned.

5. Probably some stuff I'm neglecting to mention.

I'm gonna lock this up for now (will only re-open it again if we have a new person join), and we'll transition ooc to the "normal" ooc chat thread.

Alright so I went ahead and unlocked this @Thunder_Lungz so we can use it for your character creation discussion.

Here's the group composition:

mnrtoler is inactive and had to step away from pbp for personal reasons, but I intend to hold his spot basically into perpetuity so that he knows he's always welcome back if he ever gets to a place where he can and wants to come back. He was a Man of Laketown and a Warrior.

Drakis2 - Seonaid, Culture: (Wo)Man of Minas Tirith (I believe), Class: Warden

Stefron - Duinhir, Culture: Dunedain, Class: Wanderer

Dr_B - Cirion, Culture: Man of Minas Truth, Class: Treasure Hunter

rpgventurer - Eothain, Culture: Rider of Rohan, Class: Warrior

You are welcome to play whatever Class you want. Whatever Culture and Background you want. So long as it can fit into the "restrictions" described in the Note below. I wouldn't worry about "filling gaps", unless that (having a "complete" party) is an aspect of the game that interests you.

The story so far is basically that:

1. We began in the Gondor city of Pelargir (southern most and biggest port), when there was a mysterious call put out amongst the rough-and-tumble, "true" allies of Gondor and the Free Peoples. Our PCs were the respondents.

2. The call turned out to come from a Captain in the Gondor Navy. He was basically trying to raise a "militia group", to take a covert pseudo-military action in the Harad.

3. The children of THE Gondor diplomat to the Harad had been kidnapped, and the situation was threatening to topple the two countries into war after a long period of relative peace.

4. Basically, there was a bunch of weirdness surrounding the situation that made it seem like it was some independent actors, in the Harad. Which is why Gondor didn't want to respond with the actual military.

5. The party journeyed to Umbar, the largest and capitol city of the Harad, to try to track down the kidnappers and rescue the kids.

6. After some trial and tribulation they found the children and kidnappers, and staged a successful rescue. However in the process a fire was started, and they fled the city with the children as it went into full alarm.

7. They managed to safely return to Pelargir with the children and return them ultimately to their family.

8. In a small and private honoring ceremony, they learned that the mother of the children - THE Diplomat of Gondor to the Harad - is on some sort of mission to find the Osgiliath palantir stone, and that the kidnappers were trying to extort her for information regarding that.

9. The party agreed to join her quest to find the palantir, and that the first step in that was to stop the Mastermind behind the kidnapping. The Diplomat's agents had been tracking the Mastermind and found him in the Gondor city of Dol Amroth.

10. The party traveled there, but by the time they reached the city the Mastermind has moved again, apparently toward the far western reaches of Gondor.

11. They conducted a investigation of his property there and found a prototype moveable-block print press and book binding machine filled with script in the Black Speech of the Shadow.

12. This is where we are now, and the party is about to embark upon a Journey to try to finally track down the Mastermind. Some time after this point is where you will come in :)

And now I will take it to private notes, so that we don't spoil anything for our crew.

Very cool! Sounds like a fun story so far! Lots of exciting investigation going on! I’ll take my time to consider the options and share anything that comes to mind. I’d like my character to make sense in the setting they’re in, so I’ll probably stick to a Mannish culture. And I was considering the Slayer class, with maybe a healing virtue since it looks like you lost your scholar.

@Stefron - Hey, I’m curious about Wanderer ability scores. In DnD 5e, the Ranger class prioritizes DEX and then CON. But for AiME they are saying Wanderer is STR/CON? Don’t Wanderers need a high DEX?

Duinhir got a high-ish dex and I have used stealth a few times but do not take any advice from me regarding DnD. I'm very noob.

Gotcha, yeah I’m not the most experienced either. But I was thinking about the wanderer and wanted to boost dex at least to 14 for +2 AC. And I was thinking of focusing on archery, so not sure if strength will benefit me too much.

That's what I did, boost to 14.

Yeah that makes sense. I think I’ll boost my dex a little more. I might not be making the most optimized choice, but we’ll see.

To be very honest with you, AIME made Strength very nearly obsolete by making the Broadsword (otherwise vanilla Longsword) a Finesse weapon.

So if you're going into DEX, you're good.

Interesting! Well, that sounds good then. So far, the AiME materials look really nice, but it makes sense that there will be issues like that.

Yea, it's unfortunate.

The player-facing elements are some of the weakest design changes they made.

The Classes, the Backgrounds, even the Cultures have some problems, and the Equipment and Money overhauls... I wonder if they were the first things they did, or what, but they're the weakest elements in my opinion.

They're not outright BAD, mind you, but just not as well done as the new sub systems and monsters and NPCs and adventure hooks and region guides, etc. Which are all pretty fantastic imo

I've contemplated buying the Fria Ligan "Lord of the Rings 5E" player handbook (they took over the Tolkien license after Cubicle 7), and seeing if I can just use their Classes and stuff with AIME's DM material and sourcebooks...

Yeah that sounds right. Your house rules are a good addition. I only did some basic research into AiME/LoTR5e but it seemed like the latter is built on the first.

I’ve been looking into the IC Resource thread at the history that the PCs all know and…

Sweet! I’ll make those last changes and the purchases and then I’ll be ready! I’m so excited!

Looking forward to some fun times with you all!

After all that secret correspondence, I'm intrigued about your character and how it ties in to the story.

Ha! Lots of back and forth mostly because I’m high-maintenance and think I know a thing or two about Tolkien. I’ll just say that our GM is very patient.

:)

Hey, are we playing with encumbrance? I’m wondering if I should be more careful with my purchases.

I had a much larger reply typed up, but my browser randomly crashed, and it just crushed my will to reply with the same level of detail I had originally typed up, so I apologize but in short...

Yes, if you're getting to a place where it's potentially an issue, please do observe encumbrance.

No worries, this is great. I’ll keep that in mind. I assume a horse can hold some stuff too, and deal with that when it comes up.