Age of Worms AP (pathfinder system)- FULL, sorry

[Shayuri]

Hehe

Guys, I could use a bit of y'all's collective wisdom.

I have two sorcerors on the table. One is celestial bloodline, one is undead bloodline. Considered and discarded already are draconic and elemental.

The celestial bloodline sorceror is ignorant of his or her heritage, and knows only that certain magical gifts have manifested. Seeking understanding of these gifts is what drives him.

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The undead sorceror is an ordinary person who nearly died. Though not quite dead, his or her body was in ignorance made the subject of a Create Undead spell. His near-death state weakened the hold his spirit had on his body, enough that the spell was able to wedge part of an undead spirit in as well.

However, the spell appeared to fail.

His body was cast aside, believed unfit. By fortune, he recovered enough to return to consciousness, and dragged himself to a temple. But even healing could not remove the sliver of unlife that had been pushed into him.

His motivation is to return to being a normal human being...though it may come in time that he'll accept the powers of his conditon, and seek some other form of reconciliation between the living part of himself, and the dead part.

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I realize the undead mage has a cooler background. Mechanically, both will be blasty mages, but the celestial will have the advantage of having some minor healing ability, while the undead mage will have a fair amount of spells specifically targeted at the undead...and the power to use mind-affecting magic on the more advanced undead creatures.

I know nothing of Age of Worms. What I've read of posts on this thread suggests to me that undead are commonplace in it though. If so, the undead mage's "focus" may not be the problem it would be in other games.

Thoughts?

 

[Walking Dad]

I like the undead idea more. The gods of the religious characters are also not specialized vs undead, so there shouldn't be an inherit incompatibility.

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BTW, finished typing the crunch part.

 

[renau1g]

The undead one may fit more, perhaps HM could tie it into someone, I'll PM him with the details (of which I'm sure he's aware)

The AP is super-heavy with undead...like enough where my wife (who exclusively plays rogues) decided to switch classes because she was terribly ineffective. Like any Paizo AP there's lots of traps though, so not having a rogue is suicide. Our DM came to a compromise, she could SA the undead, just not incorporal ones.

 

[jkason]

I realize the undead mage has a cooler background. Mechanically, both will be blasty mages, but the celestial will have the advantage of having some minor healing ability, while the undead mage will have a fair amount of spells specifically targeted at the undead...and the power to use mind-affecting magic on the more advanced undead creatures.

I know nothing of Age of Worms. What I've read of posts on this thread suggests to me that undead are commonplace in it though. If so, the undead mage's "focus" may not be the problem it would be in other games.

Thoughts?

I'm playing a celestial sorcerer over in Living PF, and I still love him conceptually, but most of his current party is neutral (I think there's one other person who had good alignment), which makes the healing half of his heavenly fire nearly useless, and thus the weaker blasty component vs. evil is less a trade-off (most blasty powers get 1d6 instead of 1d4, don't they?) and more a straight-forward disadvantage. I have no idea if that's how submissions here will go, but if 'minor healing' is a significant part of the 'pro's' list for the concept, it's something to keep in mind.

Also, if you're planning to focus on blasting, the Celestial bloodline arcana becomes less useful, as well, since it's a summoning boost. Arguably the same can be said of the undead arcana, but I'd think having a few mind-affecting spells as a blaster is probably more likely than having an array of summons if it isn't your focus (since summons take so much longer to cast).

My 2 cents, for what it may be worth.

 

[jkason]

The undead one may fit more, perhaps HM could tie it into someone, I'll PM him with the details (of which I'm sure he's aware)

It occurred to me that 'left for dead' might have happened in a mining accident, which would tie the character to the town, which would give Shayuri's character something of a minor local celebrity and / or infamy.

The AP is super-heavy with undead...like enough where my wife (who exclusively plays rogues) decided to switch classes because she was terribly ineffective. Like any Paizo AP there's lots of traps though, so not having a rogue is suicide. Our DM came to a compromise, she could SA the undead, just not incorporal ones.

That's the rule in PF though, yes? So we won't have to worry about that?

 

[Shayuri]

Good points on Celestial...though I did plan to do some summoning later on.

I also like the bloodline powers for Celestial, the resistances are very nice, and the wings are potentially great.

That said, undead has a spell-like blasty power, and can turn incorporeal for brief times.

I don't like the undead DR vs nonlethal damage. I raaaaarely see nonlethal damage happen in games. I suppose it means he or she will be hard to put down in a contest of unarmed attacks.

Conceptually, the undead background also needs someone who tries to turn the character undead, so that may or may not work with the character being local. It's a cool idea though.

 

[s@squ@tch]

It occurred to me that 'left for dead' might have happened in a mining accident, which would tie the character to the town, which would give Shayuri's character something of a minor local celebrity and / or infamy.

Could also tie into my characters background as a childhood friend that was brought to the temple of Pelor for healing, where Zeke's master did his best to heal him and remove the undead taint from his soul, but failed.

 

[fireinthedust]

Despite personally wishing Summoner was an Int-based class, the idea of playing a kid with a killer imaginary pet does appeal to me.

Gnome Summoner? I wish I could trade the Summoner spells for combat ability, however, like better BAB and skill selection (climb, jump, etc.). Ranger would be great, but animal companion doesn't show up for a while (level 4, which in PBP time is several years). I wonder if I could play a mounted archer who *rides* his Eidolon?

And yes, I'm going for Calvin and Hobbes here.


Races: by Core, does that include the Bestiary?

 

[Walking Dad]

Could also tie into my characters background as a childhood friend that was brought to the temple of Pelor for healing, where Zeke's master did his best to heal him and remove the undead taint from his soul, but failed.

About background, is there an official Obad-Hai presence in the starting village?

 

[fireinthedust]

Question: if I start up a fighter/mage concept, could I eventually transfer over to the Magus that's being playtested now?


If so I'd like to do an elven or half-elven Eldritch Knight. Depending, of course, on whether there's room and if the Summoner role is taken by someone.