[OOC] Grand Lodge Musings

[Sassafrass]

This area is for OOC musings, mutterings, and all around general mashing of teeths.

Since we're new to the Pathfinder Society, let's first introduce ourselves and our playstyles to one another, and then we'll get into mechanical considerations. I'll build everyone a private thread after the fact for each and every one of you, but start considering what kind of PC you want. PFS doesn't assume party balance, but balance also isn't a bad idea.

Welcome aboard, everyone!

[TipsyBard]

Hello everyone!

Thank you again for inviting me, Sassafrass. This looks exciting.

I am very character and relationship focused in most games. I enjoy building relationships between my character and other party members over time, whether they be heated rivalries or enduring romances. Combat is fine and all, but the real thrill for me is in the conversations my characters have with other PCs, excitedly waiting for banter and reactions.

While I obviously enjoy playing Bards and other support-based classes, I am willing to fill any role in a party. I tend to pick my character's class off of their personality rather than picking a class first and then deciding how they would act.

Can't wait to make some new friends, both in character and out!

[Maskain]

Yes, hello. I suppose introductions are in order.

My name is Maskain, Mask... whatever. As long as it has a couple letters from my name I know you're talking to me. I've had a couple years working with D&D, but not as much time (read: none) playing Pathfinder so I tend towards understanding the classes they share better. This however does not strike against my want to learn or acquiesce to what is needed on a team. I prefer either side of the compass, but don't really hit center when I make a character, usually trying my best to make a format that I don't believe that anyone has seen played before. This likely would prove difficult considering my general 'new-ness' to Pathfinder in general.

I drive for the story and combat in equal parts, often preferring the grim story before I'll sink into the happy story. Though I wouldn't fight against the thought of dreamy-eyed adventurers traipsing across pits of lava and having a spot of tea with the enemy in the same breath.

Of classes I would jump at playing or be tentative about playing...
Jump On: Barbarians, Clerics, Wizards, and Gunslingers.
Tentative: Alchemists, Anti-paladins, Bards, and Sorcerers.
These classes I refer to myself playing them, not others. Unlisted classes would be neutral.

Just a short introduction. Glad to be here.

[Dressedtojazz]

Hello good people.

Thanks for the invitation, Sassafrass. I am a mid-thirty's male from Denmark. I've played RPG since mid 90's - most of them being Warhammer, Shadowrun and the last few years: Pathfinder.

I love good storytelling and expanding characters along the way, but Pathfinder to me is also a big seller due to the extensive work around battles and combat. My characters are often chosen from a perspective of play technique and a wish to try my hand with them all and then I commit myself to breathe life into the characters and make them stand out in one way or the other.

I like to bring in archetypes that has handicaps or flaws, like limbing, disillusions of the world, excess body material, radical odeur etc...

For this game I hope to try my hand with an aasimar summoner or a swashbuckler.

I am looking forward to it all.

[Sassafrass]

Welcome one and all; we're still waiting on our fourth to make an appearance. Our fifth finally got back to me with a negative, so we're going with we happy four.

Since we're doing intros and whatnot, I'm Sass, I prefer character-driven, story-propelled games with a casual, comfortable feel, as well as adaptable tone and whatnot.

I've started providing formatting for character creation and all that, but I'm going to wait on the template for character creation until we have all four players appear and whatnot; Private threads will go up shortly, however.

Food for thought, if anyone has any special sheets that allow special races or such, send'em my way. Also food for thought, here's the Pathfinder Wiki if you want to dive head-first into the setting, here's the Pathfinder Wiki. Delicious stuff, mostly.

Also a thought for thinking over your characters: the theme for this Season of PFS that I'm running is second chances. Each of your characters has been given a second chance. Think about what that chance is as we go forward. This is entirely of my creation, not of anything PFS is doing.

Welcome one and all!

[KKristophDavion]

Hey all, good to see some familiar and some new faces around

I'm a recent high school graduate as of a week ago, having been playing Pathfinder since I was 6 and DnD since I was 3. I took a break for a while and only just started getting into Pathfinder now, so I might be rusty but I'm picking up the new material pretty quickly now.

As for playstyle, I enjoy heavy roleplay and heavy combat equally so, as long as I get warnings as to how each game will go at the beginning so I can prepare thusly. However, Depression(tm), PTSD, and other mental issues I deal with get in the way sometimes so I can't always make posts as long or hardy as I would like. Still, RPGs are what keep me going sometimes, so I'll always come back.

I'm a fan of any kind of character, although personally, I do actually try to stay away from spellcasters in this edition at least. I have an affinity for natural attackers, and rogues have been my favourite class for quite some time. For this runaround, I was hoping to play a ninja of some sorts, to wet my tongue on that class.

Thanks again to Sass for bringing me into this one!

[Sassafrass]

Awesome! Gang's all here!

A few notes as far as character ideas go: I've listed the potential races available, so consider accordingly. Culturally-speaking, you can go with any pastiche of an Earth culture you'd like, so things like Samurai, Ninja, etc. are perfectly normal and fine. Asian, European, Middle Eastern, Indian, whatever you want or need, Golarion has a version of it. Also a fair amount of popular culture, be it pirates, Hellraiser, dinosaur-riding barbarians, etc. It's a wide, fairly mad world.

Also keep in mind that some, though not all, Races have unique histories to Golarion. Humans, Half-Orcs, Half-Elves, and Dwarves are all pretty much run and dry fantasy, as you'd expect. Elves are more alien, having hidden away on an alien planet to avoid a catastrophic event almost 5000 years ago and are just now returning to Golarion. Halflings have no home of their own and have recently been enslaved heavily in the now-devil-worshipping nation of Cheliax. Gnomes have a deep connection to and are considered a lighter form of Fey. The other available races likely will require some research on your part, but are worthy of such a thing.

We'll be starting off in a drug-producing, slave-based Middle Eastern city called Katapesh in a nation of the same name. Now that we've got all four of your, I'll build a character template in the morning for you all to fill out in your private threads, before you begin on Sheets. If you all want to discuss potentially knowing one another before this Pathfinder Society assignment, that's entirely up to you. If you want this to be your second mission or your return mission after an extended period away, by all means. Pathfinder Society allows you to play any level of adulthood without the mechanical penalties, so if you wanted to be an old clomper, you'd not get the mechanical adjustments which may be beneficial or a hindrance. Either way, food for thought.

Hopefully that can get a conversation going, and as you all brainstorm, throw some ideas around. Now we have a basic understanding of what everyone likes to play and such, and we can build from there.

[Dressedtojazz]

Great. I am in the process of submitting my character to the paizo site. I have settled on a human swashbuckler.

Amon is from the Riverlands and has likely been around for a first adventure (there was something called the initiation mission or something like that). I will write more about him when Sass has made the template and I am very open to include ties to your characters too.

[TipsyBard]

I need to tank on this for a bit, and absorb the setting some more before I really pin down a character idea. I'm not super familiar with the history and such in Golarion yet, so I'll be doing some reading up before committing. Will likely go with a character with at least one adventure under their belt, potentially having worked with Dressedtojazz's character?

[Sassafrass]

The general idea for most Pathfinders is that they have an Initiation mission, called the Confirmation, where an Initiate is paired with more experienced Pathfinders (or sometimes a full retinue of Initiates, because that sounds like a great idea) and upon completion, are full-fledged Pathfinders. These can be simple exploration missions, acquisitions, etc. It is expected that as Pathfinders you have done that at least, but for some of you, this could act as your Confirmation.

In case I haven't posted this yet, and I think I have, here's a link to the Pathfinder Wiki which contains all the info you'll need on the setting.

As an aside, I have chosen the starting point for this game as Season 6. We won't be backtracking into periods where the Factions were different or whatnot due to simplicity, but if you lot are fine with bending your minds we could potentially start elsewhere. All my prep assumes Season 6, but I've prepared for Seasons 0 and 3 in the past due to thematic interest and personal interest besides. Season 0 is a good starting point because the PFS was new, and Season 3 it was hitting its stride as a system, and had an Asian focus, though at level 1 it would be impossible to read the proper conclusion in time, which is a Mortal Kombat-style tournament that promises a great bounty for the Pathfinder Society.

Season 6 has a good strong self-centered subplot and a good introduction adventure besides without relying on the Confirmation scenario previously offered in Season 5 (which is still a solid adventure). So if anyone has any preferences, feel free to check out the different Seasons and their plots, but this one is a good one for exploration what the Pathfinder Society really is.

Character templates coming forthwidth.

[Dressedtojazz]

I have paged through the season 6 guide and really like what I see. I have tried a few of the 0-scenarios myself and would rather not go through them again, if I could choose.

I also like the idea of the second chance theme - which is also tied to 6, amiright?

@Tipsy - sure thing with the recent adventure completed together.. maybe Sassafrass will give us a few notes on what it possibly could have been from the previous season and we can build our connection to the society and each other from there?

[TipsyBard]

Or it could be as simple as having completed the Confirmation mission together.

[Sassafrass]

It's one I'm building around it, and Season 6 offers a lot of chances to explore second chances, so I figured I might as well do something new and throw a theme in.

Certainly! Last season dealt with the end of the Year of the Sky Key, which involved racing to find an ancient Dwarven citadel and super weapon, and then the Year of the Demon, which dealt with helping prevent the demons of the Worldwound from overflowing past that region and destroy the rest of Golarion. While those are overall subplots, the PFS is typically all over the place; pour example, Episode I of Season 6 is in Katapesh/not Arabia, while the one I'm eyeing for Episode II is in Absalom and Episode III is halfway across the globe in Tian Xia. Plenty of weird stuff going on.

A few ideas: the Confirmation scenario took place in Season 5, so that's entirely a possibility. I can give you the general ideas if you'd like for that in private threads, but it involved exploring ruins underneath Absalom/the Isle of Kortos. Other ideas could involve adventures in Varisia involving the Sky Key (which I imagine we'd invent), or involving the recent upheaval in the Factions switching from nation-based to ideal-based (for example, discontendedness over the true nature of "freedom" in Andoran caused the Andoran Faction to become Liberty's Edge). Only the Grand Lodge and the Silver Crusade were not switched, while the Sczarni (the Varisian mafia, basically) combined with the Qadiran Faction to make a more mercantile Faction.

I can work with your ideas and build something, if you'd like.

[Sassafrass]

In the interest of everyone being on the same page, here's what we're looking at as a party build right now:

• A caster of unknown Race and Class, but with a shortlist and a concept
• A Human Swashbuckler
• A Halfling Rogue, Inquisitor, or Cleric, some combination thereof
• A Halfling Ninja

I smell swashbuckling fun times in our future, with a cast build like this.

[Dressedtojazz]

Originally Posted by Sassafrass

A few ideas: the Confirmation scenario took place in Season 5, so that's entirely a possibility. I can give you the general ideas if you'd like for that in private threads, but it involved exploring ruins underneath Absalom/the Isle of Kortos. Other ideas could involve adventures in Varisia involving the Sky Key (which I imagine we'd invent), or involving the recent upheaval in the Factions switching from nation-based to ideal-based (for example, discontendedness over the true nature of "freedom" in Andoran caused the Andoran Faction to become Liberty's Edge). Only the Grand Lodge and the Silver Crusade were not switched, while the Sczarni (the Varisian mafia, basically) combined with the Qadiran Faction to make a more mercantile Faction.

I can work with your ideas and build something, if you'd like.

I would appreciate to be new to customs and lore south of the Inner Sea - I think it could be fun to play that side of the story, thus the pathfinder society quest (confirmation or not) would be cool to have in Varisia or any of the neighbouring countries to the River Kingdoms (or in the River Kingdoms).

While Amon is not as young and green as they get, he is quite new to the Society and it is fine with me that it is the confirmation that has been through with Tipsy's character. On that note, I am writing my character up as we speak and as soon as you got name, class and race cleared with Sass, it would be neat to have.