Character creation

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Aug 9, 2018 2:49 am
This has turned into an interesting group. I'm seeing a clear preference for elves among this group!
Aug 10, 2018 3:03 am
It looks like we're back to 4 players, and 3/4 have submitted a character. One person has yet to do so, but I know their schedule runs hot/cold in the extreme IRL. So, 2 questions:

- Would everyone be ok if we start, and had our outlying player catch up when they're ready?
- Since Doomsday Dawn was part of the download package, I'm kind of guessing you all thumbed through it, so to speak. Would it be ok if I just cut to the chase and started the game straight away with minimal backstory? (Assuming you looked over the adventure(s)!)
Aug 10, 2018 10:51 pm
-yes, and I will need a day to read the backstory, but should be ready to post by tomorrow night. Only read what I had to create a character. :)
Aug 11, 2018 3:25 am
No worries, and I'll be on the road a lot for the next day or so. Not sure how much net access I'll have. I should be home by Sunday evening though.
Aug 11, 2018 3:21 pm
I haven't flipped through it yet, but I'm good running with minimal story to start, and I'm definitely ok letting the fourth catch up as they can.

I've got a friend in town from overseas, so posting may be somewhat more erratic than normal, but they are another GPer, so I'm not completely dark. :)
Aug 13, 2018 9:15 am
Okay, I'm back. Flipping through the book now. Am keeping it simple with the character. Human (or half-elf) sword-and-board fighter with the nomad background. He could be currently or recently employed as a guard at the circus, so that could be a link to @marithyme's rogue. He may or may not be aware of her illicit activities (your call).

At character creation are you automatically Trained in the Signature Skills listed for your class?

For the life of me, I can't find where it says how much starting gold we each have. Is that determined by Class? Found it on Page 174. 150sp.
Last edited August 13, 2018 5:40 pm
Aug 13, 2018 6:40 pm
https://i.pinimg.com/564x/7f/a9/6e/7fa96e553ed34efcd5c0d5cc8a05e493.jpg
[ +- ] Janhur Stormwine, Half-Elf Fighter

Okay, I hope I did everything correctly. Some questions:

1. The Nomad background makes you Trained in a terrain-based Lore skill. Any suggestion for terrains that are likely to come into play in this adventure?

2. Class DC = 10 + Level (1) + Key Ability Score (18) = 29. Is this correct?

3. It says I pick a number of skills equal to 3 + INT modifier. At character creation are you automatically Trained in the Signature Skills listed for your class, or do you still need to pick them? I assumed the latter.

4. What, Shield Bash doesn't have the Shove trait? How disappointing!

5. I have armed this character with a longsword but I was really hoping to give him some exotic weaponry to represent his travels and interactions with different cultures. So I was considering some of the other sword and knife options. Fighting style wise this guy likes the Forceful, Disarm, Shove, and Trip trait. Can weapons with ancestry traits be wielded by someone outside of that race? For example, can my character use a dwarven waraxe? Likewise, can a non-monk use a monk weapon, such as a sai?
Last edited August 13, 2018 7:36 pm
Aug 13, 2018 6:49 pm
1. No comment. :)
2. Class DC is 10+Level+Key Ability Mod so for you it'd be 10+1+4=15 from everything I can see.
3. You are not trained in your Sig Skills. The Signature Skills only serve to show which things you can take to a level beyond Expert as we level.
4. Pssh, right?!
5. I am excited to see what happens here!
Aug 14, 2018 2:15 am
@ Jabes

1). The first leg of the playtest adventure is set in Magnimar (a city in the region of Varisia). Anything beyond that would be a spoiler!
2). From what I can tell, Dramasailor has it right, but like everything these are new rules. We can revisit if needed.
3). I'm still a bit confused about the skills and feats, but I'm working on understanding them better.
4). Make a note of that for the playtest feedback!
5). Normally, I would say that weapon proficiency should extend to incorporate the examples you mention, but for the sake of the playtest, I'd just say go with rules as written, and make a note of stuff like that for when you submit your feedback. You could pretty easily come up wth narrative reasons for why a fighter would have been exposed enough to a dwarven weapon to think that they could use one functionally. I don't know if the playtest accommodates this though.
Aug 14, 2018 5:44 am
Quote:
Normally, I would say that weapon proficiency should extend to incorporate the examples you mention, but for the sake of the playtest, I'd just say go with rules as written...
Ah. Well my question really was limited to RAW. I wasn't sure whether those traits were intended to limit tge weapon's usage to certain races. What about weapons with the monk trait?
Aug 14, 2018 12:38 pm
Jabes.plays.RPG says:
Quote:
Normally, I would say that weapon proficiency should extend to incorporate the examples you mention, but for the sake of the playtest, I'd just say go with rules as written...
Ah. Well my question really was limited to RAW. I wasn't sure whether those traits were intended to limit tge weapon's usage to certain races. What about weapons with the monk trait?
From my reading of it, the ancestry and monk traits are there to allow them to use those weapons, but dont prevent others from using them so long as you are trained in that class of weapon. So as a fighter you should be able to use any exotic weapon regardless of its traits.
Aug 14, 2018 5:36 pm
Maybe I'm misunderstanding your questions, Jabes. Sorry if I am. I went and looked at the Human Ancestry, which incorporates Half-Elf and Half-Orc. It does appear that they are implying weapon restrictions, however, there is "Unconventional Weaponry", but its marked "Human". Not sure how to go with this. My reading of the book leads me to believe they'd really prefer that there be certain weapons exclusive to certain races/classes, but then they provide loopholes to get around those restrictions. Since the human ancestry covers one race, and then for all intents and purposes two other races, it isn't clear why humans only would get Unconventional Weaponry, but not the half-humans. I was looking at p. 37 in the Rule book for that one. Also for fighter, it says "Trained in All Exotic Weapons". When I looked in the Equipment section, Dwarven Waraxe is indeed listed as "Uncommon Exotic Melee Weapons". However, at 6th Level. there is a feat for Fighters, "Exotic Weapon Training". So...does this mean a fighter can use exotic weapons, but not until 6th level? Hmmm...what do we the hive mind think about this? Ultimately, I don't see why we can't fudge the this to make it work, and frankly, I don't see a reason why a first level fighter couldn't use a dwarven waraxe at first level. Thoughts?
Aug 14, 2018 7:14 pm
Well for the purpose of this character in this game it's not a hug deal. Sure, I woud love to play around with the weapon traits because I think it's a cool addition to the game but in the end I'd be content just taking a longsword or scimitar and saying it's of unusual design because he picked it up somewhere exotic. On the other hand since this is a playtest so this is a worthwhile discussion and we owe it to everybody to bring these questions to the developers' attention.
Aug 15, 2018 1:27 am
Jabes.plays.RPG says:
On the other hand since this is a playtest so this is a worthwhile discussion and we owe it to everybody to bring these questions to the developers' attention.
Fully agreed, and its because this is a playtest I'm scrutinizing the rules like this rather than just looking for a way to make it work the way I want. Add whatever cool ornate details you want to your sword. In my head when you said that, I immediately imagined the rapier (I think) that Inigo Montoya had in Princess Bride. "I have never seen it's equal."
Aug 15, 2018 5:54 am
When I created this character I had in mind a shield specialist (hence the purchase of the shield with shield boss, and taking Reactive Shield as my first fighter feat) but now I think I'd like to make one final change to the character and then I'm ready to start.

My brother (my real-life brother, not my character's sibling) is a professional musician and he is constantly buying new guitars. I've lost count. In addition, he likes customizing them and even built several his own. This is the way I would like to play Janhur - he is constantly picking up new weapons and seeing what he can do with them in battle. His eyes light up when he sees something shiny and new, and he constantly tinkers with his weapons to personalize and improve them.

https://thumbs.gfycat.com/AltruisticLoathsomeEastrussiancoursinghounds.webp

Mechanically that will mean starting with Furious Focus instead, and ditching the shield in favor of a second weapon. I may or may not upgrade his armor. Will get all that done in the the next couple of hours.
Aug 15, 2018 2:00 pm
+1 for the Wayne's World reference.

I saw that you have Crafting, and I think this probably is a perfect fit for how you see your character as he develops.

Don't stress too much about the timeline. I'm not bothered. Take the time you need. For the type of game we're playing, I'm not even really stressed about how precisely the characters are built. I'm more interested in parsing the rules. No need to rush yourself.
Aug 15, 2018 3:03 pm
Well I'm all set :-D He has a light shield now instead of heavy. Keeping the longsword, changed dagger to main-gauche, bought a flail. Changed Reactive Shield to Furious Focus.
Last edited August 18, 2018 8:11 pm
Aug 16, 2018 7:23 pm
Trying to read up on the setting lore as it is pretty unfamiliar to me. Finally got around to looking at the pantheon and selected Cayden Cailean as Janhur's deity. It's funny that I named him Stormwine before I even knew this! :-D
Aug 17, 2018 2:15 pm
I think it's quite a brilliant coincidence. Interestingly, the lore is something that hasn't really changed at all between editions. The plan appears to be to leave Golarion exactly the same between first and second edition. I've been a bit surprised to see how much of the the setting material they've incorporated into the core book. A lot of that stuff was in the Inner Sea World Guide. (A fantastic setting book.)
Aug 18, 2018 7:56 pm
Just read the background, and I see we're supposed to choose one of the backgrounds from there. Want us to retcon?
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