(Discussion) General Part VII

[Erekose13]

welcome back GW!

 

[Dexerion]

can i start my game?

 

[Knight Otu]

I reminded the other judges earlier today. If you hear nothing contrary until monday, go ahead on monday. (just remember to get an excuse for your character not joining ).

 

[Manzanita]

Yes. Get that adventure started. Thank you.

On another note, I was thinking perhaps we should review our 100 xps/month rule when adventuring. I think we should change it to 100 xps/month per level. As a 4th level PC needs 4x the XPs to advance than a 1st level PC, it seems reasonable. I'd like to keep seeing PCs advance levels.

As it stands, adventurers gather regardless of level, so 3rd & 4th level PCs blend right in w/1st & 2nd level PCs. The lower level PCs gain from this, as it allows the group to overcome more difficult obsticles, and thus gain more XPs as a group, which go further for the lower level ones. Thus the lower level PCs tend to gain more from this combination of levels.

I like how different level PCs form parties together, I just think it would be in all our interests to keep PCs advancing in levels, and this seems like an appropriate way to do it.

 

[orsal]

Yes. Get that adventure started. Thank you.

On another note, I was thinking perhaps we should review our 100 xps/month rule when adventuring. I think we should change it to 100 xps/month per level. As a 4th level PC needs 4x the XPs to advance than a 1st level PC, it seems reasonable. I'd like to keep seeing PCs advance levels.

As it stands, adventurers gather regardless of level, so 3rd & 4th level PCs blend right in w/1st & 2nd level PCs. The lower level PCs gain from this, as it allows the group to overcome more difficult obsticles, and thus gain more XPs as a group, which go further for the lower level ones. Thus the lower level PCs tend to gain more from this combination of levels.

I like how different level PCs form parties together, I just think it would be in all our interests to keep PCs advancing in levels, and this seems like an appropriate way to do it.

I think 100 XP/level is a lot. I think scaling it by level makes sense, but if we do go that route, I'd advocate lowering the number, maybe 50 XP/level.

When adventures get bogged down, characters could end up getting over half their XP from counting real-time spent. I'm not against small awards as compensation for the loss of a chance to really earn XP, but it shouldn't go too far. When you gain a level, it should represent a reasonable amount of in-character experience, not just out-of-character wasted time.

 

[Yurith]

Just for info. My character, Yurith, has still not been approved after 3 months(At least). Its on the 4th page of the character thread. I would say thank you, but im really not.

 

[orsal]

Just for info. My character, Yurith, has still not been approved after 3 months(At least). Its on the 4th page of the character thread. I would say thank you, but im really not.

Yurith: when your character is ready, please email nimisgod or Knight Otu (see the first post in the Character List thread for their addresses) to make sure they notice there's a new character waiting for approval. But don't email them quite yet; your character is going to need a lot of fixing. Since I've got a little time to spare right now I thought I'd look over yoru character and give you some preliminary observations, since I know you're still figuring this all out. (LEW is used to orienting people new to play-by-post, but not new to D&D, so what I'm about to do for you isn't anyone's job.)

(1) There is a standard template for LEW character sheets; you can download it at this link. It would be much easier to proofread your character if it were in standard form. (There may be more errors than what I am about to list below, errors that I'm not noticing because you haven't laid everything out the way we're used to.)

(2) Your abilities are too high. The way you count scores for point buy: a score of 8 is free; each extra ability point from 9 up to 14 costs 1 point; then an extra 2 points each to increase to 15 and to 16, and 3 to increase to 17 and to 18. So the abilities you've listed would cost 4+3+10+5+5+8=35 points. You should only have 30, so you'll have to reduce some of those. By the way, note that I counted your 13 Dex as if it were 11, and your 14 Con as if it were 16. That's because point-buy totals are based on raw scores, before racial adjustments, so if you want to play an elf with 14 Con you have to buy a 16 Con.

(3) You've listed the racial adjustments next to the scores. That's confusing, because usually we list the modifiers there, for easy reference. Your modifier in any ability is (ability score - 10) / 2, round halves down. So, for the ability scores listed, your modifiers should be +1/+1/+2/+1/+1/+2 respectively. (Of course, when you reduce your scores to get down to 30-PB, some of the modifiers will be changed too.)

(4) I was trying to figure out where a lot of the numbers for HP, attack rolls, and saves came from, since they didn't seem to fit your ability scores as listed. Then it occurred to me: having written the elven racial adjustments where the ability modifiers should go, you used those adjustments in place of the proper ability modifiers. The result was a character much weaker than you should have. After you've calculated your proper ability modifiers (see (3) above) you can go back and check those scores.

(5) Your skill ranks -- huh? First off, how many should you have? As an elven sorcerer, (2 + intelligence modifier) x (level +3). If you keep intelligence 13, that's 3x4=12 skill points. (If you lower Int to 11, however, you'll have only 8 skill points.) Since all your skills are class skills, 12 skill points translates to 12 ranks. But I can't see how many ranks you've taken in each of those skills. In order to check the numbers, we'd need to see, for each skill, the number of ranks and the ability modifier for the appropriate ability. For example, suppose you take 4 ranks in Concentrate and you have Constitution 14. Then 4 ranks, plus a +2 modifier, gives you a total score of +6. All 3 of those numbers should be listed, each in its own column, so that nimisgod and Knight Otu can check that the addition is correct.

(6) As a first level character, you get to choose 1 feat. See the feats section of the SRD for options.

(7) Equipment: List price and weight for each item. You can look those up in the weapons section and the goods and services section of the SRD. You have 120 gp to spend (3d4 x 10, automatically maximum), and whatever is left over should be listed under "gold". However much that turns out to be, it won't be 130 gp, since you don't even have that much *before* buying your equipment.

(8) Since your charisma is at least 12, you get a bonus 1st-level spell per day -- you should be able to cast 4. You can see how many bonus spells a particular Charisma score will give you in the basics section of the SRD. Of course, since you currently cannot cast any spells higher than first level, that's the only bonus spell you have, but when you get to be able to cast 2nd level spells you'll get another bonus spell there, provided your Charisma is at least 14.

I hope all this helps! When you've fixed that, email the character judges and they can officially proofread your character (as opposed to my unofficial proofreading).

 

[Knight Otu]

What else can I say - thanks orsal, for pointing Yurith in the right directions.
Also, don't be afraid to nag if you find that your character has not been approved yet. We'll try to approve them as fast as possible, but sometimes things get lost in the shuffle

 

[Yurith]

err...thanks and all. But the thing is, all those instructions meant to me.

 

[Yurith]

And the link dosent work