[Re-Recruitment] When Journalists Attack!


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I've decided to play a bard level 5 neutral good.
I'm still working on a name but it will be somethng like
Philip Stones
Donald Samson
Cronkite Walters...
Something like that.

Oh and he will have a necktie of +2 charisma and a press pass of mindshielding. plus more to come.

;)
 

I'm going with a Human Psion (Telepath) 5, filling the copy-editor post. He's working on a mental printing system, although all he's getting at the moment are some interesting ink blots...

What rules are we using for psionics? Standard PsiHB, If Thoughts Could Kill, Mindscapes, The Mind's Eye, or some combination of the above?
 

Okay, a few things off hand:

1) player recap, 2) psions, 3) gods

1) The group we've got so far looks like:

Argent: Bard journalist
Jarval: Psion (telepath) copy-editor
Dark Eternal: Psion (dwarven) photographer
Kalanyr: Wizard research assistant
Sixchan: Unknown (don't worry, no rush)

Argent would seem to be the chewy moral center. Kalanyr, utility player, mass distraction device (that 100 XP is there for a reason. :) I just want to make sure that for Dark Eternal and Jarval, that you find yourself in a situation where both of you feel happy with your niches: part of this is differentiating your characters a lot (dwarf is a good start, but different attitudes, ways of doing thing, ethics, etc are good as well), and more importantly, different abilities (which suggests under the current look that Dark wants to head away from being the charming type, but I think that was the idea already).

2) Psionics for our psions: I have a PsiHB right here on me, so if you like that, great. If you don't, as some people seem to not to, that's fine as well: suggest something else. If you think there's a clearly better way of handling psionics, then suggest it, and we'll look at it: as long as it seems easily explained, and most of the work is offloaded to you (or you make a really good case to buy it), it'll be fine. I'd prefer that if both of you stay psions, you work under the same system. That sound okay?

3) With regard to clerics (I know Argent has moved away from it, but just in case anybody else): so there are gods, and there aren't. It really depends on your metaphysics, but this isn't a philosophy game, this game eats philosophers for breakfast with a side order of mathematicians (usually with a side order of a psychologist to take the logical edge off) so we'll leave that aside, and just get to the meat of the question: Are there gods?

Virtually all people think there are gods, and wear tokens of the gods they worship, which actually suck life magic from them.

Clerics think there are gods, and wear tokens of the god they worship, which give them life magic.

High-ranking mages and politicians are sometimes agnostic in private, although it is noted in the records that several high-ranking officials who have publicly denied or questioned the existence of the gods usually get smited by lightning bolts shortly thereafter.

High-ranking clerics...well, that's an interesting question what they believe. No one really knows

Traditionally, journalist types worship gods of trickery, knowledge, chaos, and good. If you want god names right now, just give me a bit of time to fix my random Cosmic-Level NPC generator.
 
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Further schtuff before I shtup away for a bit:

For spellcasters: it's part of the game world that you only get magic energy by having ties to to the proper parts of the world. This can be an important or unimportant part of the world, so if this doesn't interest you, we'll just background it. We can also develop mechanics around this if people are really interested, but we'll save that for now.

I won't speak too much about this, but the one-liners are:

Clerics (all divine magic really): You belong to an church, and as long as you're in good standing, they send you energy (they say it comes from the big G) through your holy symbol.

Wizards: The easy way is to belong to any of the large number of wizard guilds in the world: they usually have access to important sites, and for the sizable dues, or doing favors, will grant access to these sites to members. The other way is basically by claim jumping: there are plenty of magic rituals to hide traces of a tap, and so if you do it in the right places, place the right defense, and get lucky, you can steal some mana here, some there, and you're all good.

Bards/other arcane: like wizards, but they tend to be more likely to claimjump

Psions: Can be either: some either convert people to their own personal religion, and get them to place tags that suck mind energy (sometimes knocking people out and placing taps in their brain). Others get power from more traditional sources, and are just better at manipulating energy from those sources on the fly.
 


The only Psionics book I have constant access to the the PsiHB, so unless anyone really disagrees, I'd like to use that as the main resource for psionics.

I'm torn between Psychoportative and Metacreative for my main discipline. I think I'll buy my stats and see if anything smacks me upside the head.

Personality wise... well, lets say that he's not the overly pretty type, and that he doesn't really concern himself too much with what others think of him. He's mostly doing this because: a) He really doesn't agree that people should be put to death for what they're thinking, b) He has a personal vendetta against the local governer ("Whadda mean, I'm under arrest!?! How the hell was I supposed to know that her cat was allergic to dwarves?!?") and c) it annoys the hell out of his parents, who expected him to grow up to be a lawyer. He's got the traditional dwarven mentality, on steroids: If yer not workin', fight; If yer not fightin', drink; If yer not drinkin', it's 'cause yer passed out drunk on the floor.


As soon as we have a solid decision regarding the Psionics rules we're using, I'll get my character slapped together and posted. :)

more later...
 
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(edit: realized I missed the easy fight club reference. Shame on me. Now fixed.)

Sounds fine, DE, but just to note that telling your parents, while a perfectly plausible thing, is a severe no-no: <insert easy fight club reference>

Journalists picked tend to be loners, but occasionally, the person with the right attitude/abilities is picked with attachments (having an SO is an interesting background to take). Occasionally, to minimize the security risk, those attachments are sort of folded into the organization (making pairs of SO's a bit common, and making people meeting on the job even more common, although these relationships tend to be anything but healthy).

Journalists occasionally undergo random loyalty screening (which mimics the process for being selected in the first place): this involves submitting to a full mind search. It's possible you could be inbetween mind searches, and it slipped out, but you could also revise into: you were expected to be another X in a long life of X's, but instead you've disappointed your parents severely by (running away to the city/hanging with floozies, working in bad occupation Y).

Sixchan, I think some form of rogue would be a great choice. I think you'd avoid invading niches too heavily if you were had both the face and dexterous elements, as nobody in the party quite has that down yet. Having invisibility through either Kal's character or through your own abilities is good.


It should be noted that you're strong on manipulation and magic, middling on intrusion and stealth, and absolutely poor on combat and healing. Being poor on combat is acceptable: while groups of 5th level journalists can easily take groups of city guards: it tends to attract a lot of attention, and specifically the attention of the elite group of guards, who are beyond your capabilities. That said, you are in a very conflictual job.

Being poor on healing is a bit more dangerous, but you can compensate with magic items.
 
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By the way, DE, have you thought about psywarrior? It might be a good fit, and you still gets lots of stuff to play with.
 

hmmm. I actually hadn't thought about the Psiwarrior angle - how about multiclassed Psion/Psiwarrior?

Also, I think I like your suggestion regarding the S.O. as a background element. I seriously doubt that it would be possible to find a player who would want the role, so would a npc who isn't part of the team but in some kind of attached position (hey, we have to work for someone, and there's gotta be other people who work for said someone) be a possible connection? It would add another layer of motivation/complexity to my character to be involved with someone else in the Journalism business... :)

Finally, how about I amend the angle regarding his parents so that they don't know what he's actually doing, and he's trying to keep them from finding out what he's doing with himself these days? Perhaps they'll get desperate enough to hire a bounty hunter to find him and "politely" encourage him to go back to law school? ;)

Ahh, this is getting more fun all the time!!!
 
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