VTT Character Creation Thread

[Alex M]

Originally Posted by gluckhf

Awesome! It's a bit difficult on my phone but I will be checking out character creation and stuff when I get home.. built my computer yesterday

I'm thinking of wizard or sorcerer spell casty role

Sweet! Definitely check out Treantmonk's guide to wizards.

[jm935]

Alex, I've taken the liberty of penciling you in for a Rogue or a Bard. But that's just an assumption–you certainly don't have to.

Everybody: I'm going to post in a minute with adjusted skill points for the classes.

[jm935]

I would like to provide a skill-point boost to many of the classes, but I don't feel confident I've got the balance just right.

Here's what I'm thinking:

Class	Old	New
Barbarian	4+	6+
Cleric	2+	4+
Fighter	2+	4+
Monk	4+	6+
Paladin	2+	4+
Sorcerer	2+	4+

How does that look? I'd be fine going ahead with this plan and seeing how it works, but now's the time to change it before we commit!

[jm935]

Originally Posted by gluckhf

Awesome! It's a bit difficult on my phone but I will be checking out character creation and stuff when I get home.. built my computer yesterday

I'm thinking of wizard or sorcerer spell casty role

Excellent! I've been having plenty of fun playing a Wizard specializing in the Foresight subschool of the Divination school.

Because:

Originally Posted by Divination School

Forewarned (Su): You can always act in the surprise round even if you fail to make a Perception roll to notice a foe, but you are still considered flat-footed until you take an action. In addition, you receive a bonus on initiative checks equal to 1/2 your wizard level (minimum +1). At 20th level, anytime you roll initiative, assume the roll resulted in a natural 20.

Originally Posted by Foresight Subschool

Prescience (Su): At the beginning of your turn, you may, as a free action, roll a single d20. At any point before your next turn, you may use the result of this roll as the result of any d20 roll you are required to make. If you do not use the d20 result before your next turn, it is lost. You can use this ability a number of times per day equal to 3 + your Intelligence modifier.

[jm935]

If you're considering a caster-type, you might also think about the Mystic Theurge, which now has lower barrier to entry:

Mystic Theurge The prerequisites for the Mystic Theurge (MT) Prestige Class (PrC) will be the following: Knowledge (Arcana) 4 ranks, Knowledge (religion) 4 ranks; ability to cast 1st-level arcane spells and 1st-level divine spells; ability to cast 2nd-level arcane spells or 2nd-level divine spells.

The Theurge became a lot easier to get into last week, thanks to an FAQ clarification of the rules by the Pathfinder design team. Since the particular route by which it's available early is obscure and requires too much fiddling, the above is a simplified, house-ruled adjustment to the prerequisites to make it available at approximately the same level as you'd get via the FAQ route.

Nobody yet knows if the early-entry Theurge will be overpowered. The general consensus seems to be that it won't be. The thinking is: you lose the Wizard bonus feats, you have to pay more gold for adding spells to your spellbook, you're a level behind getting access to spells, you depend on two different casting stats, and so on.

So I'd actually be curious for you to play a Theurge just to see, if that's something that appeals to you. If it looks like you're too powerful as we get up in levels, I'll let you know and ask you to reign it in or rebuild, or I'll just squash that one and have you roll up a new guy.

For reference, here's a pretty laid-back (not super-optimized) Theurge build I'm considering for myself:

 

Mystic Theurge Human Wizard 3 / Cleric 1 / Mystic Theurge XX Wizard – Divination (Foresight), Bonded Item Cleric – Travel domain, Trickery (Deception) domain Str 7 Dex 14 Con 14 Int 19 Wis 14 Cha 7 01 Spell Focus (Conjuration) 01 Toughness 01 Improved Initiative 03 Augment Summoning 04 +1 Int [= 20] 05 Extend Spell 07 Persistent Spell 08 +1 Wis [= 15] 09 Spell Penetration 11 Quicken Spell 12 +1 Wis [= 16] Strategy: always go first, concentrate on battlefield control & summoning with your Wizard spells, and buffing allies & summons with your Cleric spells

[Alex M]

Originally Posted by jm935

Alex, I've taken the liberty of penciling you in for a Rogue or a Bard.

Originally Posted by jm935

How does that look?

Rogue 10+!

[jm935]

Originally Posted by Alex M

Rogue 10+!

I thought about it. I'm not sure how I feel on that count. One of my worries tweaking the Rogue class is that I don't want to make it too-tempting of a 1 level dip if you're playing another class.

10+ plus trapfinding and trap spotter and 1d6 sneak attack? And the other classes have their skills boosted? You could play just about anything, dip one level of Rogue, and then keep up the Disable Device and Perception. Be a pocket-Rogue no problem.

Maybe that's not a big deal. I don't have a problem with tinkery builds. But I'm leery of encouraging that via house-rulings. Suggests I might be doing it wrong, y'know?

IF that does look like a problem, here are two possible ways to solve it.

(1) Adopt a no-multiclassing rule. Only if that's something the group wants or is comfortable with. It can be nice to have build options taken away from you! The core classes are plenty powerful in Pathfinder (with the possible exception of the Rogue and the certain exception of the Monk), so it's not like you really lose out as far as being able to pull your weight goes. But it makes the build process a lot more straight-forward if you find yourself tempted against your better judgment to get into too much tinkering.

But I leave that up the group. What do yall think?

(2) Strategies less than 10+ but in the same spirit. Here's a thought:

Possible Rogue Skill Boost (i) Fast Learner: if Rogue is her favored class, then whenever the Rogue gains a class level she may gain both a hit point and a skill point as a favored class bonus. Alternatively, she may choose a racial favored class bonus (gaining neither a hit point nor a skill point for that level). (Modeled on the Fast Learner feat.) (ii) Well-Rounded: at 7th level, the Rogue treats all skills as class skills.

[jm935]

In fact, maybe a better skill boost would just be to grant everybody the Fast Learner feat for free.

Pros: less of a multiclassing danger

Cons: a Human with Int dumped to 7 would still gain 3 skill points every level in his favored class (because you gain a minimum of 1 skill point from the standard [class+Int], and that's calculated *before* racial and favored class skill points). One of the reasons I like boosting Fighter et al. to 4+ is it actually makes the drop from 8 to 7 Int cost *something*, even if it's not a huge cost.

[jm935]

Okay, I'm liking the Fast Learner solution. It doesn't encourage multiclassing and the math is better. I like having Fighters et al. bottom out at 2 skill points per level instead of 1. If humans get 3 per level, well, that's just lucky for them.

Proposed house rule: all characters gain the Fast Learner trait. Whenever you gain a level in your favored class, you gain 1 hit point and 1 skill point as a favored class bonus. Alternatively, you may choose a racial favored class bonus (in which case you gain neither a hit point nor a skill point as a bonus for that level).

[Alex M]

Originally Posted by jm935

Proposed house rule: all characters gain the Fast Learner trait. Whenever you gain a level in your favored class, you gain 1 hit point and 1 skill point as a favored class bonus. Alternatively, you may choose a racial favored class bonus (in which case you gain neither a hit point nor a skill point as a bonus for that level).

Aye!

[Pretzel]

After sifting through the Cleric material, I am going to adopt the archetype of an ex-military cleric. The diety is Ragathiel and I am going to roll with a (bastard) sword & board and adopt a spell-failure-be-damned kind of attitude. (actually, I will try to keep it under 20%)

Looking at my Domain options, I am thinking Community, Glory or Good (if no one is rolling an Evil character). Any thoughts on those? They are all highly recommended and my primary aim is to support the tank.

[Alex M]

Originally Posted by Pretzel

I am going to roll with a (bastard) sword & board and adopt a spell-failure-be-damned kind of attitude. (actually, I will try to keep it under 20%)

Sounds good! I'll note, arcane spell failure has no effect on divine spells. So you don't care about that as a cleric.

[jm935]

Excellent. A melee Cleric will fit well with the group. If you're sword-and-board, note that you'll need to use a light shield. You need a hand to cast with and heavy shields are too heavy.

Spell failure is only for arcane casters. (Hooray!)

Community, Glory, and Good are all fine domains. However, Good is the only one of those that Ragathiel has. His domains (listed at the bottom of the info box on the right) are: Destruction, Good, Law, Nobility.

For similar-ish flavor and a different choice of domains, you might consider Iomedae, your classic righteous-warrior-of-light goddess. She's got: Glory, Good, Law, Sun, War. Those are all good choices.

I like the War domain, especially for the Tactics subdomain.

***

And I should add: no evil characters, please. Just makes things complicated.

[Pretzel]

Originally Posted by jm935

Proposed house rule: all characters gain the Fast Learner trait. Whenever you gain a level in your favored class, you gain 1 hit point and 1 skill point as a favored class bonus. Alternatively, you may choose a racial favored class bonus (in which case you gain neither a hit point nor a skill point as a bonus for that level).

Aye!

[jm935]

Okay, the Fast Learner idea has a couple votes, and still looks like a good idea on reconsideration. So let's take that as settled.

***

See email for shared folder and statblock template. Google Docs doesn't have very sophisticated formatting options for tables but I thought it might be best to use web-based software we're all guaranteed to be able to use. Especially since I haven't gotten around to installing MS Word on this computer yet.

If it doesn't do what we need it to we'll switch over to something else.