Recruiting: high scale Pathfinder, Taldor, aka Byzantium focused

[Zaer Darkwail]

Ok, have read the stuff somewhat. I have decided to roll a member of House Durahan :).

[Kolbrandr]

In general the game is open to players coming in, and you can certainly still submit something, but please basically read 1) the very first post in the thread, as it covers in the main everything you would want to know in summary and 2) remember that I want stuff like concept and backstory first.

[Kolbrandr]

To otherwise add, if you note the ideas for your concept first, I can then besides direct you to selections of campaign stuff you might find useful or relevant instead of just saying "so read through this whole thing"

[TheGlyphstone]

Apologies if this was answered somewhere in the 32-page intro thread, but are you considering the Dreamscarred Press psionics material to be 3rd-party? It's included in its entirety on the PF SRD wiki, and DSP is the only 3PP I've ever had any respect for as far as balance goes, but many DMs still have PTSD-induced flashbacks to the ungodly broken mess that was 2E psionics and ban modern psi material on reflex, others don't like the quasi-New Age mystic flavor of crystal and ectoplasm alongside the standard high fantasy tropes.


I want to play regardless, but I like knowing my options.

[Zaer Darkwail]

Well, my concept is member of Durahan house who's mother was from Branas house (imagine all shock and horror for her part to help adapt to house full of sorcerers and wizards and all magic flying about). His father was typical Durahan who died in his thirties while my char was young lad (around age of eight or ten). By mother's influence he grew more 'cautious' and 'tactical' approach to combat (so he can survive and not leave mother without grandchildren) but he got fearless faith what his father had. He just has more solid head in his shoulders and also manners suiting for a noble but he gets along with his family.

So, a human male paladin (Warrior of Holy Light + Holy Tactician)/Fighter (Weaponmaster; Longsword).

[kckolbe]

A scaredy-cat paladin?  Please let that be so.  Got any plans for leadership?

[Zaer Darkwail]

A scaredy-cat paladin?  Please let that be so.  Got any plans for leadership?

He does not have aura of courage class feature so he is not fearless to point being suicidal :P. Anyways leadership wise I thought his main cohort is going to be some fancy mount (perhaps a shapeshifting dragon if levels allow). Then use extra cohort feat to get some adventuring pal (a spellcaster somekind) what he acquired over the years. He has established some kind militia outposts here and there and perhaps adventuring guild which he is headmaster (and reason why he sits Oppara most of time instead doing what most his family does but he did spend wild years outside Taldor like rest of his family does during upbringing).

[kckolbe]

Don't paladins already get a special mount?

[Kolbrandr]

Apologies if this was answered somewhere in the 32-page intro thread, but are you considering the Dreamscarred Press psionics material to be 3rd-party? It's included in its entirety on the PF SRD wiki, and DSP is the only 3PP I've ever had any respect for as far as balance goes, but many DMs still have PTSD-induced flashbacks to the ungodly broken mess that was 2E psionics and ban modern psi material on reflex, others don't like the quasi-New Age mystic flavor of crystal and ectoplasm alongside the standard high fantasy tropes.


I want to play regardless, but I like knowing my options.

I'm not, it's not so much PTSD (I played Dark Sun, I learned to love broke as hell 2E psionics thank you ;p) as a mix of that last thing and not wanting really to open the third party window all that wide. And again, feel free to ask as many questions as you need to, not expecting you to read the whole thread, just the first post, and ideally some of the stuff linked in it.

[TheGlyphstone]

The flavor+floodgates explanation I can understand and get behind.


Since you said to cover concepts, it looks like one of the niches no one has tried to fill yet is a thieves' guild, so I'm looking to make a crime lord/underworld boss type character. Rogue on one half of the gestalt obviously, not sure what I'll pick to synergize on the other. Where should I start looking/reading?


EDIT: Rules Q: Can an alchemist's bomb deal sneak attack damage if it scores a direct hit? SA damage never applies to splash damage, but does it add to direct hits?

[Zaer Darkwail]

Don't paladins already get a special mount?

Normally yes but Holy Strategist get rid of Divine Health and Divine Bond features to able grand teamwork feats on others (activate them as standard but then later can swap them as swift action like a aura).

[kckolbe]

That works nicely, then. 

[Kolbrandr]

Don't paladins already get a special mount?

Depends if they take the sword option or not or lose it to archetype.

The basic concept itself sounds fine Zaer, feel free to start fleshing it out backstory wise, read up on some of the other noble houses that have been written up to get a sense of them, eyeball the timeline, that kind of thing.

[Kolbrandr]

The flavor+floodgates explanation I can understand and get behind.


Since you said to cover concepts, it looks like one of the niches no one has tried to fill yet is a thieves' guild, so I'm looking to make a crime lord/underworld boss type character. Rogue on one half of the gestalt obviously, not sure what I'll pick to synergize on the other. Where should I start looking/reading?


EDIT: Rules Q: Can an alchemist's bomb deal sneak attack damage if it scores a direct hit? SA damage never applies to splash damage, but does it add to direct hits?

We have various clandestine groups, but no one has really followed through with a thieves' guild, nope, so you certainly wouldn't really be crowding anyone that way. I'll have to check on the alchemist bomb as I don't remember immediately off hand, but I do remember there having been a whole big argument about that on some rules forums. I'm leaning vaguely to "depends on the bomb" but that might get really fiddly.

of written up groups relevant to criminal-ish things, you might want to eyeball: https://elliquiy.com/wiki/House_Sclerina

And it hasn't been mega finalized, but some of us have been talking out the law and crime situation of Taldor in a general sense:  https://elliquiy.com/wiki/Taldor--Underworld

[Ebb]

The flavor+floodgates explanation I can understand and get behind.


Since you said to cover concepts, it looks like one of the niches no one has tried to fill yet is a thieves' guild, so I'm looking to make a crime lord/underworld boss type character. Rogue on one half of the gestalt obviously, not sure what I'll pick to synergize on the other. Where should I start looking/reading?


EDIT: Rules Q: Can an alchemist's bomb deal sneak attack damage if it scores a direct hit? SA damage never applies to splash damage, but does it add to direct hits?

This page might be of interest to you:

https://elliquiy.com/wiki/Taldor--Underworld

It's probably about 95% baked and approved.

[TheGlyphstone]

I know flask-throwing rogues were a huge pet peeve of Jason Buhlman in 3.5, to the point where he specifically included the line 'splash weapons cannot deal precision damage' in the Throw Splash Weapons rule, but the wording of Bomb being specifically defined as a weapon (the only non-alchemical item to use TSW rules) is just ambiguous enough that clarification is useful. I personally don't think it should be disallowed for the direct hits, since other forms of touch attacks aren't prohibited from dealing precision bonuses, but it's a GM call.

Probably still going to go alchemist anyways, but again, knowing options is good.

This page might be of interest to you:

https://elliquiy.com/wiki/Taldor--Underworld

It's probably about 95% baked and approved.

Excellent, thanks.

[kckolbe]

Maybe some compromise where the flasks can be shaped to do precision OR splash damage?

[TheGlyphstone]

Flasks are right out either way, unless that gets houseruled away, and I can sort of see the fuzzy logic in disallowing precision damage for glass bottles that shatter on impact. It's alchemist bombs, which are weapons dealing direct damage to one target and splash damage to secondaries, that's uncertain.

[Kolbrandr]

Hah, beaten in my edits to mention the underworld page. Like I say, give the Sclerina an eyeball as well, as they're fairly relevant to such things.

And hrm, yeah, I know from the ambiguity there, hence my own reluctance. I'll probably scour the Paizo forums to see which way the screamings on it went, but for right now, nominally we'll say that direct damage with bombs can do sneak attack, but I reserve the right if it ends up working out incredibly broke as hell in game somehow to go "we're walking back on that one".

[TheGlyphstone]

Heck, I'd settle for 'sneak attack kicks in if the attack roll reaches normal AC, only bomb damage if it hits Touch AC but misses full AC'. Seems like a decent compromise if one is needed.




EDIT: So I've read through the Underworld section, and I'm not sure if my concept is going to mesh. I wanted to be a powerful, ruthless crime lord at the head of a large thieves' guild/gang, but it looks like the Brotherhood of Silence is already canonically in that spot, and while they're happy to just sit back and collect tribute from the smaller gangs in the city, I doubt they'd be cool with a group looking to outright unseat them as the dominant crime force in Oppara. And if I'm not the head of a large and powerful gang/guild, it'll be a lot harder for me to get the high personal character level I'm hoping to get. Any suggestions?

[EroticFantasyAuthor]

What about an alchemist discovery that allows sneak attack with bombs? Would that work?

[Kolbrandr]

Heck, I'd settle for 'sneak attack kicks in if the attack roll reaches normal AC, only bomb damage if it hits Touch AC but misses full AC'. Seems like a decent compromise if one is needed.




EDIT: So I've read through the Underworld section, and I'm not sure if my concept is going to mesh. I wanted to be a powerful, ruthless crime lord at the head of a large thieves' guild/gang, but it looks like the Brotherhood of Silence is already canonically in that spot, and while they're happy to just sit back and collect tribute from the smaller gangs in the city, I doubt they'd be cool with a group looking to outright unseat them as the dominant crime force in Oppara. And if I'm not the head of a large and powerful gang/guild, it'll be a lot harder for me to get the high personal character level I'm hoping to get. Any suggestions?

Well you could always simply be a rival to them honestly, at absolute basic, but failing that? You could instead be something like, say, a noble family with a secret face into crime. Which is to say, a family that in response to looming hard times, essentially clandestinely took up supplementing their income with crime, to the point where they are basically sort of this blend of legal/illegal businesses under a legitimate veneer. So you're the titled Corleones basically (the Michael era of the family). So whereas the Brotherhood of Silence are purely focused on underworld street crime, you are more managing a blended empire of legitimacy and illegitimacy, with the reach to do things like have ties into piracy, and international smuggling and stuff like that.

("The Sclerina!" you might say. Nothing the Sclerina do is really all that illegal in the grand scheme of things, with only the dealings with Cheliax and such places coming close. Even their drug dealing is more or less legal. They're just gross, depending on your perspective. They don't really hugely get up to sponsoring theft, racketeering, smuggling, the black market, that whole corner of the world. They're not unfamiliar with it, but it's not their focus of doings.)

[kckolbe]

So I've read through the Underworld section, and I'm not sure if my concept is going to mesh. I wanted to be a powerful, ruthless crime lord at the head of a large thieves' guild/gang, but it looks like the Brotherhood of Silence is already canonically in that spot, and while they're happy to just sit back and collect tribute from the smaller gangs in the city, I doubt they'd be cool with a group looking to outright unseat them as the dominant crime force in Oppara. And if I'm not the head of a large and powerful gang/guild, it'll be a lot harder for me to get the high personal character level I'm hoping to get. Any suggestions?

First off, I have to admit that I like EFA's idea of requiring the use of a discovery (or maybe a feat, with point blank shot as a pre-req).  Requiring a hit against the full AC makes sense as well.

The part I put in bold is, I think, inaccurate.  Currently my character is the head of a mage order that is between 100-150 people (can't remember the exact number).  His cohort is the leader of a small merc company.  Currently, he is level 12, which is tied for the highest.  There's a chance he'll go one level higher, as I am still occasionally working on things (though nothing lately).  Part of his high level was not how much power he had, but the route he took to get there (starting off as a common guard).  A part was through submitting ideas to plots for him, like coming up with NPCs, some of which are not as loyal or even outright antagonistic to him.  The biggest part, though, probably had nothing to do with his write-up, but just for the other organizations (City Guard, House Tarton, and House Stromford) that I built.  There is still more to do, and I would recommend helping with that.

As for background stories to help get there, maybe your char used to be a high-ranking member in the Brotherhood, but a rift following the loss of control removed him from power and he now has a small thieves' guild of his own.  Additionally, maybe your char is still in the Brotherhood.  After all, someone has to lead it.  They are a major Thieves' Guild, and while that does mean power and influence out the wazoo, it also means that fucking everyone wants you taken down.

[TheGlyphstone]

All good options - I was picturing more of a commoner-based crime group, but playing the Pathfinder Mafia is a fun idea as well. Will definitely have to think about this.

[RubySlippers]

When will this start?