OOC Discussion

[drpete]

For out of character discussion.

[Lamech]

Okay, so we're just supposed to put the three characters in the character sheet thread, note which one is the starting character and go from there? Oh and do the standard of living costs and dwarf debt payments add to the xp reserve?

[drpete]

For now, I guess we can start with just making up one character each, though backup characters would come out of the same set of rolls.

Lifestyle maintenance costs are just cost of living rolled up, so we don't have to sweat the "small stuff". They wouldn't go to reserve, though if you wanted to blow huge amounts of money living large, that could.

Dwarf debt payments, or church donations (outside of paying for healing, etc) or good works, etc, would count. If a priest type wanted to build a congregation, say, I'd count that for now, too. Just to clarify, dwarves are sort of like golems, so their "father" made an expensive statue and brought it to life. Tradition says that the Dwarf is supposed to try to pay his father back.

[bobloblah]

Bummed we don't get to roll ourselves; the illusion of control in rolling up a Character is the panacea for the old-school meatgrinder! Anyway, how would you be generating starting spells? What about a Template (you've summed the Gold roll, already)?

[drpete]

Yeah, sorry bout that... I just recall what a pita it is to input 36 3d6 rolls.

As for starting spells, roll on the list... I guess you could choose either the main book list or the companion list, though...?

One more thing occurred to me... please find a picture for your character. I haven't used maptool before, but I'll see if I can't try to find a way to make use of it.

[bobloblah]

I'm sure I'll survive. What about Templates? If playing a spellcaster I'd be inclined to use the Templates, as they ensure decent spells, whereas one can get hosed with random spells (very painful at the pace of play-by-post).

[drpete]

Hrmmm... alright, to maintain the randomness but give you some control, each character has a wealth number generated with it. If you divide that by 10, you get the original roll. You can take the spells from that rolls template, or roll for spells from the spell list.

Equipment/concept wise, you can choose lower rolls if you like, and "buy" the equipment by taking the lower roll (eg, for 5-6 taking 5) and multiplying it by 10 (for a cost of 50 gp) to give you some choice there. I'm just trying to maintain some "luck of the draw" in the spell selection.

Edit:cleaned up a couple things

[bobloblah]

Sounds great, thanks!

[bobloblah]

Anyone have any thoughts about a character, yet?

[kalstone]

I'm working up a Bladedancer as my primary.

[Lamech]

I was gonna start with a Machinist, although maybe a priestess or witch if we're short of healing.

[bobloblah]

I've got a couple possibilities in mind, including a Mage with Healing 2 or 3, a Shaman, or a Cleric.

[drpete]

For the most part, there is not much difference between priests and priestesses, here, though some gods require different things of males and females. Some, like Caint and Tenen have pretty strict requirements on clergy that would make dungeon crawling difficult (stuff like ministering to the downtrodden, or performing music in the temple, etc). If you want to play a non militant clergy person, it may take some compromise on which god you serve.

[Zorroroaster]

Hrmmm...still....thinking.

[bobloblah]

We could do with some kind of rogue-like, but I just don't think I have the rolls...

EDIT: Although, I guess the Machinist would have us covered for Locks and Traps.

[Zorroroaster]

Looks like we don't have much that's tanky so far either, but I don't know if any of my rolls work for that either.

[Dogma]

I could make a straight-up fighter or a Zaharan ruinguard, though I'm not sure if I want to play such a dark class. Might be interesting though

I also have stats for a elven spell sword.

I had been thinking of playing a thief before i got my stats... Oh well. (drpete...any thoughts on letting us swap two stats?

[drpete]

The dwarves have a strange setup, with delver offering the "find traps" and the machinist offering the "remove traps".

I haven't put it up in house rules yet, but the regular "exploration" speed will give you some chance of seeing visible traps like tripwires, etc. An acks version of the lotfp fast blast movement rules.

Note that the Zaharan ruinguard and the Nobiran wonderworker are not available, nor is the Thracian. I suppose those or other classes might become available, but not for now.

I'm gonna say no about the swapping stats. I get why you might want to, but the random factor seems to make for interesting choices. Don't forget that this od&d inspired environment includes brutal stuff like save or die traps, so these guys may have a limited shelf life however we do this step.

[drpete]

Kal,

I like your blade dancer, but let me pose a question or two... She is a devout blade of the god of war. How do you see the healing prof fitting in with that? She could totally be on a path to expert military strategist... her troops would get +2 initiative already, and could go higher, or a sorta ok medic.

Healing, in principle, is available to anyone, so it doesn't need to be stuck in the cleric ghetto.

[Lamech]

The healing proficiency probably shouldn't go on the Bladedancer. She'll eventually have access to more reliable spells.