[OOC Thread] Delving the Mists (seeking recruits!)

[Gramcrackered]

I use Trillian, an all-in-one proggy. My MSN is Gramcrackered@hotmail.com, my ICQ is 142135240, and my AIM is GramcrackeredDJM.

Why did I bother to tell you all of that? Uh...I dunno.

Anyway. Only solution I see here is to modify the class skills of one of the classes, take a level (or two) in Bard or Wizard, or go with the Expert class.

Which isn't a bad idea, actually. That'd neatly solve your skill point issue. Don't know if I'd say it'd balance things out by simply taking two levels of Expert and counting it as one though; bit on the fence about that issue.

 

[Cerebus13]

Fear, Horror and Madness saves are just a bit of flavor added to Ravenloft. They are Will based saves that have different consequences when failed, and different triggering events.

Madness won't come up very often, only when something happens that would completely turn a PCs world upside down. Such as their lover turning into a werewolf and being forced to kill them. Consequences from this are permanent or temporary insanity of some type...but there are treatments for this (such as the Hypnosis skill that was introduced into Ravenloft).

Fear is pretty obvious as for when it is caused to be rolled. If a big flesh golem just kicked down a tree to come chase after you it might make for a good time to roll Fear. Consequences will either cause you to flee or possibly cower in a corner somewhere...depends on the situation and what you roll.

Horror checks would come up in a situation where you encounter something really gross or disgusting. Waking up in bed next to a mutilated corpse might cause a Horror check. I forget the exact consequences on it but they shouldn't be too hard to imagine.

 

[Cerebus13]

If people would really like to chat to me faster about their characters at all you can try IRC if you like. I idle on the server irc.rizon.net and can set up a channel called #cerebus13rpg or something like that. Otherwise I could download Trillian.

Let me know if there is enough interest for either of these two alright?

 

[Gramcrackered]

Here's some further explanation.

Fear save is caused by a menacing creature. Some judgement is clearly called for on that, but, regardless, the DC is equal to 8 + 1/2 the creature's HD + the creature's Cha modifier.

Horror save is caused by witnessing scenes of terrible cruelty or simply things that shouldn't be. DC is largely up to the DM. Here's some examples:
DC 5 = Sign of violence. Pool of dried blood, splintered door, etc.
DC 8 = A decaying body.
DC 10 = A scene of pain or suffering. A beggar ravaged by disease, a doctor sewing wounds shut, etc.
DC 12 = A freshly slain corpse.
DC 15 = A scene of terrible agony. Torture, involuntary transformation, etc.
DC 20 = A scene of evil, cruelty and madness. Finding dismembered bodies that have been turned into marionettes, etc.
DC 25 = Malign paradigm shift. In other words, when a character discovers that an important element of the surroundings is not only drastically "wrong," but it has been so all along. Realizing that the characters are the only people in the town who AREN'T evil shapeshifter, discovering that the carriers of a plague epidemic are actually the victims of rampant vampiric feeding - and are still under the vampire's control, etc.

Madness is a lot more complicated, so I won't bother to explain the DC of that sort of thing.

As for the results of failed rolls...well...that involves a lot of charts and whatnot, so you're just going to have to wait and see how things go.

 

[Gramcrackered]

Telsar: Rogue/Wizard.
Me: Fighter.
Salzorian: Dhampir. Basically a Fighter.
Fangor: Undecided.
Pyrex: Ranger.

Dang it. We've got no Cleric.

 

[Cerebus13]

Telsar: Rogue/Wizard.
Me: Fighter.
Salzorian: Dhampir. Basically a Fighter.
Fangor: Undecided.
Pyrex: Ranger.

Dang it. We've got no Cleric.

I might NPC a character in the party to move the plot along at points...so I can cover that position if you need.

 

[Fangor the Fierce]

What do we need a cleric for? As an Anatomist, if I can get everything squared away, I get access to Cleric Healing Domain Spells. Sure, they are level one for the time being, but each Anatomist level gains in Cleric level spells as well.

Cerebus, as for needing Knowledge Anatomy, I have two options so far that I can see:

1. Use a feat to gain Knowledge Anatomy as a class skill.
2. Try gaining Expert as a class, where as I would add 10 skill to my list as class skills. If I do so, are you allowing 2 levels of this NPC class to one level of PC?

 

[Fangor the Fierce]

Anatomist Hit Die and Class Skills:

Exactly what are they? I do not see the reference, and would like to know how many hit points I gain and what skills are class skills...

 

[Gramcrackered]

Ha! Bit of a problem, that.

 

[Cerebus13]

What do we need a cleric for? As an Anatomist, if I can get everything squared away, I get access to Cleric Healing Domain Spells. Sure, they are level one for the time being, but each Anatomist level gains in Cleric level spells as well.

Cerebus, as for needing Knowledge Anatomy, I have two options so far that I can see:

1. Use a feat to gain Knowledge Anatomy as a class skill.
2. Try gaining Expert as a class, where as I would add 10 skill to my list as class skills. If I do so, are you allowing 2 levels of this NPC class to one level of PC?

A single level one cleric isn't going to go very far in a party of five level 6 characters, but I don't want to influence what characters you make at all so please do make what you want.

Fangor:

If you gain Expert as a class I'm not going to give you 2 levels in it at the cost of 1. Honestly the class isn't all that bad if you're just picking it up to get access to skills and such...plus if I let you take extra levels in it you would end up with 2d6 extra hps from one level gain. Keep in mind that having more than 3 different base classes will give you an XP penalty unless you keep your 2 non-favored classes within one level of each other...so you're either going to want to take levels in Rogue/Ranger/whatever.