Lots of Stuff Here - Read Slowly and Don't Get Overwhelmed
OK, a few announcements/ideas:
First, thanks to all of you for keeping up the quality of the role play in the game. I'm lovin' it! Mustapha's turning out to be a great Bard/Alchemist with his stories and bombs, Jake's working in some really cool 'quirks' that are making his background come alive for me, and Abraxis and Lerissa have an awesome 'Angel/Devil' thing going that is working well. Kudos to you guys for coming up with a deep, rich adventuring party!
Ryan has accepted the invitation to join the game. He's reading over the OP stuff and the threads, and should be working on a character concept. You guys remember how much of a pain in the butt I am about this, so you know it'll be a while before he's up and running. I'll work his character in during the intro to 'Souls for Smuggler's Shiv.'
Lerissa and Mustapha both have classes from the Advanced Player's Guide as part of their characters - they'll need to be updated to the official rules. Feel free to do that now if you wish, but I'm not gonna worry about it until we start the Adventure Path proper. If either of you needs any help with conversion let me know.
With the release of the Advanced Player's Guide there are LOTS of new options and toys to play around with - and they're all fair game for you from this point forward.
Retroactively, there are only a couple of changes I'm comfortable with at this point.
Don't feel like you have to make these changes! I love the characters you guys have come up with just as they are. But I also understand the desire to play with new toys. The new options are designed to be balanced with those from the Core Rules, so you're not missing out if you choose to keep your characters as they are.
- Core Class Archetypes: Each of you has at least one Core Class as half of your Gestalt make-up. The APG introduces 'archetypes' - slightly more specialized versions of the core classes that substitute out some of the class features. If there's an archetype for either or both of your core classes that you believe suits your character concept better than the base version, you may substitute it.
- Cleric Subdomains: Again, slightly more focused areas within the major domains for clerics (these take the place of the Archetypes for Clerics). Jake, if you want to substitute a subdomain for either or both of your current domains that will be fine, but you need to stay within your original choices - 'Decay' & 'Growth' would be your options for 'Plant,' and 'Ice' & 'Ocean' for 'Water.'
- Sorcerer Bloodlines: Instead of Archetypes, Sorcerer's get new bloodline options. Matthew, it seems to me like it would be hard to change out your Sorcerer bloodline and still keep his basic concept intact but you may have a different opinion. While I'd prefer you kept Celestial as I think it's a great fit I'm quite willing to be convinced if you want to make a change.