All Rogues Game: Wretched Hive of Scum & Villainy

Thread for proposed "all rogues" Pathfinder game. Content to be added as needed.

Will take 3-5 players. If interested, propose a race/class/archetype combination to start with, and we'll see how it works. I'll repeat the paramaters posted in the original thread where this idea originated.
  • Because of the archetypes, which allow for a great deal of variety on the mechanics of the concept, let's use the Pathfinder rules. The "PRD"--SRD specific for Pathfinder, available at the Paizo website, has all the information you'll need. The Classes link in Core Rulebook has the basic class rules, and the archetypes are listed under the link Core Classes in the Advanced Player's Guide with additional ones listed under Class Archetypes in Ultimate Combat. Needless to say, I'm looking for characters who use the Rogue class. If you want to multiclass in a few levels into something else, that might be doable, but I want at least three levels of rogue first, so we can maintain the campaign concept. Game will begin at 1st level. XP will be handed out by me, and not necessarily calculated according to XP by CR tables.
  • No alignment. I'm not even going to ever address alignment. As far as I'm concerned, there's no such thing, except in the case of outsiders and maybe undead or something. No "mortals" are strongly enough aligned to count, so don't even consider the concept of alignment when making your characters.
  • On that front, I have no problem with rather rascally, scoundrel characters; those who would be able to successfully navigate and feel at home in a fantasty wretched hive of scum and villainy. This does not mean "can't work together with the other PCs when necessary" kind of nonsense, but otherwise, I'm not looking for white hats here.
  • I'll run a game that's mostly urban intrigue and skullduggery--but with some pronounced wilderness activity too, especially if I get any characters who are equipped to handle the wilderness. I don't anticipate anything that looks like your classic dungeon, though.
  • I'm not going to be fussy about race selection, although I'm adopting my otherwise somewhat non-D&Dish setting. The environment you'll be in is mostly populated by humans and tieflings, with some ifrits (fire genasi), aasimars, and shifters here and there. My setting doesn't actually have any elfs, dwarfs, gnomes or halflings, although I'm adapting this for a one-off, so if you want to play one, that'd be fine. You probably won't ever run into another one, but I won't make a big deal out of it; your race can kinda fade into the background. And Pathfinder doesn't have rules for shifters, but I'll handwave them in with slight modifications to half-orcs or something. Please no really bizarre races like tengu or catfolk, though. I don't want to be the bad guy and veto stuff, but they really just won't fit with the concept of the campaign I'm pitching.
  • In my experience, play-by-post works best with a few caveats. First, folks need to stay on top of the game. When folks aren't posting for days at a time, that's when the game grinds to a halt and gets abandoned. I certainly don't expect everyone to be waiting with baited breath for an update, but checking in a few times a day seems to be almost necessary to generate sufficient momentum to get a Pbp working. Secondly, Pathfinder is a fiddly system, and if I don't handwave a fair amount of the rules during play, the game will seriously bog down and lose too much momentum to work. What might work fine in a face-to-face environment doesn't always work in Pbp and vice versa. If you have a problem with fairly fast and loose GM rulings because it's not your style, then Pbp (at least one run by me) is probably not your thing. Similarly, combat will not be very tactical, because I'm not going to create grids or anything. You'll just have to do your best to imagine stuff, based on my descriptions. Combat will be firmly narrative, because I just don't know another method of doing it via Pbp that isn't more trouble than it's worth.
I'm confident that the game can work (theoretically) because I've run such a game before in the past (via Play-by-post, even) and it was wildly successful. But it can, of course, fail is the players aren't sufficiently engaged to keep up a level of momentum that's sufficient to get Pbp rolling.
 
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Although I wouldn't start building characters until you get approved and get a concept in, just for the heckuvit, here's how characters will be built. Use the old d20 array of ability scores: 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, and 8. Add three ability ups of +1. You can add them all to one score, spread them among multiple abilities, or otherwise break up the three any way that you want.

Hit points are max at first level, and will be HD/2+1 (i.e. 5, given that Pathfinder rogues have a d8 HD) + Con bonus for every level thereafter. We'll use average starting wealth (i.e. 140 gp, called pieces of eight in this setting). Although I actually like more rolling at chargen, especially in a Pbp environment, I don't want to mess with it, so we'll go with average values for everything to keep things smooth and easy.
 

HolyMan

Thy wounds are healed!
Interested...

But just wondering what the group would be up to? Would we be part of the local thieves guild running errands for them? Or just a group looking for that big score?

I would like to play the big muscle of the group. A slightly dumb brute who follows orders and likes to break things.

HM
 

GlassEye

Adventurer
Also interested. Human, Rogue (of course). Archetype is a bit tougher to narrow down (too many options!) but Spy is probably my main choice although there are a bunch of others that I'm interested in. I'm also looking at Cutpurse, Poisoner, Swashbuckler, & Knife Master (?). I like the 'too-smart for his own good' type but I've never tried a ranged rogue focus...
 



Deuce Traveler

Adventurer
So far I am looking at the following, though I am going to passive and see what everyone else is doing:

-Smuggler
-Sniper (with climb for hitting from roofs)
-Roof Runner (with ranged weapons)
-Scout (nasty class)
-Charlatan
 

Kaodi

Hero
Unfortunately I do not think I am in the market for another game, because this looks like it might be the perfect campaign for a character concept I had: a girl genius rogue who was about skills rather than combat. Maxed intelligence, weak in charisma, and maybe in wisdom too. Kind of like Ellen Page's character in Inception, but on the wrong side of the law; specializing in building traps and alchemy, and forgery as well, and related skills.
 

HolyMan

Thy wounds are healed!
I'm thinking of a human Rogue(Scout/Thug) - Brititus called "Brick" by everyone because he's as thick witted as a brick.

I'll need a character to follow - an older brother type figure to be there to give direction when things are more complicated than -smash this or break that.

Volunteers?

HM
 

HolyMan

Thy wounds are healed!
Off course I am almost done with Brick's crunch just have a few questions.

The setting? Mainly for the background and all.

So we add three more points to the array and not the normal racial bonus correct?

And are we using traits? Meaning we can pick two.

HM
 

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