The Romance of the River Kingdoms
- Thread starter Dr Simon
- Start date
In other words: "Everything you were thinking of would be good, Theroc"
I'm really torn between the two races. I think the Tlaxu would make an awesome shaman after a bit, what with the "Spirit sight" and such, but shapeshifting is also pretty awesome.
Also considering two other nainekchai types: Constrictor or Crocodile.(Constrictor because it can go almost anywhere[climb and swim speeds]) and crocodile because they could be pretty nasty in an aquatic area. Bite->Improved Grapple-> Drag under & outlast them(Though, I'd only take those is swimming would be a relevant or important skill)
My Tlaxu decisions would rely on which class combination I was playing, though the idea of a "Concentrating strike" combined with a sudden use of the claw weapons(especially if a T'laxu is allowed Improved Natural weapon) would be really awesome for a surprise attack.
Edit: So, Tiali, which archetype will you go for? I've got a ton of ideas already so your choices may help me narrow things down.
Also, question for Dr Simon: What happens if a barbarian class nainekchai enters badger/wolverine form and activates one of his rage abilities, then gets damaged in combat? (both creatures rage when damaged)[This will help me narrow my choices as well]
Another question: What is the primary casting stat for a shaman? What stat improves the DC of their spells, and grants additional spells per day(if applicable)?
Yet another question(I'm full of them): Would a T'laxu taking levels in their racial class gain proficiency with their racial races? The PDF doesn't say they do, but if the racial levels are making them a 'better representative' of their race or what have you, one would think they'd learn at least one or more of them.
~tosses another question on the pile~ What hook would be used to draw the new characters into the adventure? I'm assuming our characters would have missed the funeral(given the adventure's been going on quite awhile), so we'd likely be pulled in by other means.
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Blackrat
He Who Lurks Beyond The Veil
In other words: "Everything you were thinking of would be good, Theroc"
Yeah, pretty much
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Dr Simon
Explorer
Hello, hello.
Hmm.. lots of questions to address. I'll start at the beginning.
Tiali: As Blackrat says, pretty much any party position is open. The two existing characters, Three Flowers and Annika, are frontline combat/etiquette and arcane magic respectively. Of the characters who we've recently lost, Xielt was a typical ranger - frontline combat and wilderness skills. Jar'Thol was mostly non-combative, a combination healer and lore-master, with potential for sneakiness if required. Growling Ape was something of an all-rounder, a druid with reasonable combat prowess (particularly when coupled with shillelagh cast on his quarterstaff) and wilderness skills. I sort of tailor the adventure to fit the character's strength (and weaknesses), so it doesn't matter too much.
PC classes - core SRD ones are allowed, and I'm happy to have variants from Arcana Unearthed. I don't see much need for Oriental Adventure classes, although I do allow spells from that book. Culturally speaking there are no samurai or ninja types anyway. Blackrat's character Three Flowers is a noble-born warrior with poetic skill, but he uses the paladin class. You can use Psion or Psychic Warrior to emulate the yana mystics of Ut'Bharma, although they consider their powers to be a different form of magic (The Way of Six Energies) rather than a completely different power source.
For the record, I don't have any of the Complete series, PHB2 or many other supplements, so I prefer the core classes, although I'm prepared to allow some tinkering, and might be open to other classes if you can provide me with the details.
Theroc: Any of those ideas are good for me. I might prefer, from a play-testing point of view, one of the non-human races, but doesn't really matter. Whichever concept grabs you most, I think.
Non-SRD fighting styles. Hmm, not sure how many I have detailed. There are a few ideas, but not many with concrete rules, so I'm happy to work something out with you if you want. The two main salsham'ai styles - Skill of Raindrops and Spider in Amber are detailed, but non-salsham'ai rarely use them. There's the Kingfisher over Flowing Water style which is a fairly rare, old-fashioned two-wepaon style. White Fist is a sort of default karate-ish style. Crane Style is an escrima-like style, using fast strikes with quarterstaff of jo sticks. Butterfly with Iron Wings style is a technique designed for women, an aikkido-ish style favouring flowing defence. Oh, there's Opal Tiger style, but you need to be a loopy cultist to learn it....
Tlaxu taking natural weapon feats - I don't see why not.
Bloodline levels - well, these are full character-class style levels, so you get hit points, BAB, saves and skills, plus a special ability or two, perhaps ability score increases, at each of three levels. I've only actually worked out the River Spirit bloodline as used by Three Flowers, I think full details are somewhere up-topic. I have vague ideas for a wind spirit as well. For draconic bloodlines I was thinking something more subtle than scales and a breath weapon. I'm using a mix of Lung and Western dragons, but the standard chromatic/metallic dragons are converted into their function rather than colour. Blue dragons become Storm Dragons, Gold Dragons are Sun Dragons and so on. Expect abilities based on those aspects, as well as some elemental/energy resistance. River Dragon bloodline, for example, would give swim, scaly command, fiery water, something like that.
Re: crocodile nai-nek-chai. Swimming has been useful in the past, may crop up again. Looking at what's coming, not *massively* so for a while, probably.
Raging badger/wolverine barbarians. Hmm... I'd say that if wounded whilst aready raging, there's no extra effect. I've not seen any precendent for stacked raging. However, if you end up raging because you were wounded in your animal form, that doesn't count towards your daily uses of barbarian rage.
Wisdom for shamans. (However, I'm open to the idea of flexible casting stats, depending on casting style. So could be Charisma for someone who commands the spirits to act. Or a wizard who uses Wisdom because they follow the more intuition-based Syllabic Magic style).
I assume you mean "racial weapons", not racial races. Hmm... sounds reasonable, although not all tlaxu races use the same weapons. Within sub-culture seems appropriate, though.
Finally, character hook:
The existing characters nominally work for the Vashti of Cormondal. Vashti is an honourific peculiar to Cormondal, a priestess combining the old worship of the river as a source of life, healing and prosperity, and of the the newer reverence for the great sage Manrupashnar, a woman who taught a way of living based on humility, charity, understanding and meditation.
The "Young Vashti", Aru Leng, has recently taken over from her revered great aunt, the "Old Vashti" who died and left a puzzle in her will for the existing characters. The temple complex, the narvinda, is a mixture of temple, orphanage, school, hospital, beguinage and traveller's hostel. The poor and sick are attended, many offer some service in return. Although many occupants are women in religious orders, this is not a requirement. many men, and many secular folk, also offere their services.
Cormondal is placed on the border of three powers. To the south, nominally in charge, is Fnoi Province, under the rule of the city of Llaza and the Merchants League. A League family, the Turifim, have a strong presence in Cormondal with the aim to re-open abandoned iron mines. Otherwise, Cormondal is almost self-governing. To the west, across the great Anhoi River, lies the fading and decandent Empire of Splendour, that looks jealously at its old holdings and nervously at the new powers occupying them. To the north, across the smaller Leng River, lies the Ashoyin Protectorate, a war-torn land where independence from the Empire was swiftly followed by prolonged civil war. Life for the average citizen in Ashoyin goes on as normal until an army descends on your village. If you are lucky, they take all your grain, livestock and anything that can be used to make weapons. If you are unlucky they kill all the young men, rape the women and burn your house down. It doesn't seem to make much difference which side they are on.
There are many reasons to come to Cormondal - it is at a crossroads, after all. It has fallen into disrepair, but there are signs of recovery and possibilites to make money or renown. You will probably have ended up seeking the Vashti, either because you are a good-hearted soul who has heard that she needs help, or because you have done something wrong and seek to atone. There are rumours of troop movements in Ashoyin that may affect this side of the Leng, there are rumours of the Turifim having trouble with their mines, there are rumours of wolves savaging livestock in the surrounding farms. The general idea is that your characters will be the kind of people who will want to help, although I'll leave the true motivation up to you.
Hmm.. lots of questions to address. I'll start at the beginning.
Tiali: As Blackrat says, pretty much any party position is open. The two existing characters, Three Flowers and Annika, are frontline combat/etiquette and arcane magic respectively. Of the characters who we've recently lost, Xielt was a typical ranger - frontline combat and wilderness skills. Jar'Thol was mostly non-combative, a combination healer and lore-master, with potential for sneakiness if required. Growling Ape was something of an all-rounder, a druid with reasonable combat prowess (particularly when coupled with shillelagh cast on his quarterstaff) and wilderness skills. I sort of tailor the adventure to fit the character's strength (and weaknesses), so it doesn't matter too much.
PC classes - core SRD ones are allowed, and I'm happy to have variants from Arcana Unearthed. I don't see much need for Oriental Adventure classes, although I do allow spells from that book. Culturally speaking there are no samurai or ninja types anyway. Blackrat's character Three Flowers is a noble-born warrior with poetic skill, but he uses the paladin class. You can use Psion or Psychic Warrior to emulate the yana mystics of Ut'Bharma, although they consider their powers to be a different form of magic (The Way of Six Energies) rather than a completely different power source.
For the record, I don't have any of the Complete series, PHB2 or many other supplements, so I prefer the core classes, although I'm prepared to allow some tinkering, and might be open to other classes if you can provide me with the details.
Theroc: Any of those ideas are good for me. I might prefer, from a play-testing point of view, one of the non-human races, but doesn't really matter. Whichever concept grabs you most, I think.
Non-SRD fighting styles. Hmm, not sure how many I have detailed. There are a few ideas, but not many with concrete rules, so I'm happy to work something out with you if you want. The two main salsham'ai styles - Skill of Raindrops and Spider in Amber are detailed, but non-salsham'ai rarely use them. There's the Kingfisher over Flowing Water style which is a fairly rare, old-fashioned two-wepaon style. White Fist is a sort of default karate-ish style. Crane Style is an escrima-like style, using fast strikes with quarterstaff of jo sticks. Butterfly with Iron Wings style is a technique designed for women, an aikkido-ish style favouring flowing defence. Oh, there's Opal Tiger style, but you need to be a loopy cultist to learn it....
Tlaxu taking natural weapon feats - I don't see why not.
Bloodline levels - well, these are full character-class style levels, so you get hit points, BAB, saves and skills, plus a special ability or two, perhaps ability score increases, at each of three levels. I've only actually worked out the River Spirit bloodline as used by Three Flowers, I think full details are somewhere up-topic. I have vague ideas for a wind spirit as well. For draconic bloodlines I was thinking something more subtle than scales and a breath weapon. I'm using a mix of Lung and Western dragons, but the standard chromatic/metallic dragons are converted into their function rather than colour. Blue dragons become Storm Dragons, Gold Dragons are Sun Dragons and so on. Expect abilities based on those aspects, as well as some elemental/energy resistance. River Dragon bloodline, for example, would give swim, scaly command, fiery water, something like that.
Re: crocodile nai-nek-chai. Swimming has been useful in the past, may crop up again. Looking at what's coming, not *massively* so for a while, probably.
Raging badger/wolverine barbarians. Hmm... I'd say that if wounded whilst aready raging, there's no extra effect. I've not seen any precendent for stacked raging. However, if you end up raging because you were wounded in your animal form, that doesn't count towards your daily uses of barbarian rage.
Wisdom for shamans. (However, I'm open to the idea of flexible casting stats, depending on casting style. So could be Charisma for someone who commands the spirits to act. Or a wizard who uses Wisdom because they follow the more intuition-based Syllabic Magic style).
I assume you mean "racial weapons", not racial races. Hmm... sounds reasonable, although not all tlaxu races use the same weapons. Within sub-culture seems appropriate, though.
Finally, character hook:
The existing characters nominally work for the Vashti of Cormondal. Vashti is an honourific peculiar to Cormondal, a priestess combining the old worship of the river as a source of life, healing and prosperity, and of the the newer reverence for the great sage Manrupashnar, a woman who taught a way of living based on humility, charity, understanding and meditation.
The "Young Vashti", Aru Leng, has recently taken over from her revered great aunt, the "Old Vashti" who died and left a puzzle in her will for the existing characters. The temple complex, the narvinda, is a mixture of temple, orphanage, school, hospital, beguinage and traveller's hostel. The poor and sick are attended, many offer some service in return. Although many occupants are women in religious orders, this is not a requirement. many men, and many secular folk, also offere their services.
Cormondal is placed on the border of three powers. To the south, nominally in charge, is Fnoi Province, under the rule of the city of Llaza and the Merchants League. A League family, the Turifim, have a strong presence in Cormondal with the aim to re-open abandoned iron mines. Otherwise, Cormondal is almost self-governing. To the west, across the great Anhoi River, lies the fading and decandent Empire of Splendour, that looks jealously at its old holdings and nervously at the new powers occupying them. To the north, across the smaller Leng River, lies the Ashoyin Protectorate, a war-torn land where independence from the Empire was swiftly followed by prolonged civil war. Life for the average citizen in Ashoyin goes on as normal until an army descends on your village. If you are lucky, they take all your grain, livestock and anything that can be used to make weapons. If you are unlucky they kill all the young men, rape the women and burn your house down. It doesn't seem to make much difference which side they are on.
There are many reasons to come to Cormondal - it is at a crossroads, after all. It has fallen into disrepair, but there are signs of recovery and possibilites to make money or renown. You will probably have ended up seeking the Vashti, either because you are a good-hearted soul who has heard that she needs help, or because you have done something wrong and seek to atone. There are rumours of troop movements in Ashoyin that may affect this side of the Leng, there are rumours of the Turifim having trouble with their mines, there are rumours of wolves savaging livestock in the surrounding farms. The general idea is that your characters will be the kind of people who will want to help, although I'll leave the true motivation up to you.
Neurotic
I plan on living forever. Or die trying.
Also, consider sneak role filled if Shaddar Mar is accepted as new PC 
Did you receive Tome of Battle, Dr Simon?
EDIT: Shaddar is edited, no magic items except few potions. If Magic Item Compendium allowed I'd take Acrobatic Boots (600gp) otherwise probably quaal's feather token (tree or whip)
Did you receive Tome of Battle, Dr Simon?
EDIT: Shaddar is edited, no magic items except few potions. If Magic Item Compendium allowed I'd take Acrobatic Boots (600gp) otherwise probably quaal's feather token (tree or whip)
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Dr Simon
Explorer
Shayuri: I'm thinking some would, some wouldn't. Generally, they probably would, being a touch of the magical world after all. Some might grant 2/3 level's worth of they had other more physical applications.
Nai-nek-chai are already spirit-touched, yes, but bloodline levels would be appropriate for those with a stronger spirit line than others. It might makes flavour sense, for example, for Annika to take Fire Spirit or something like that. I'm also considering a Beast Spirit set that enhances bestial characteristics. Nai-nek-chai would become more savage, more in tune with their animal side. Other races would become a bit like a nai-nek-chai, but without the shapechanging. Ideas and input are welcome.
Neurotic: No, haven't got the files. Which address did you send them to? Try psionm (at) hotmail dot com, although hotmail sometimes balks at large attachments. Happy to allow Shaddar Mar (although the name reminds me of something evil from the Wheel of Time, can't remember what).
Nai-nek-chai are already spirit-touched, yes, but bloodline levels would be appropriate for those with a stronger spirit line than others. It might makes flavour sense, for example, for Annika to take Fire Spirit or something like that. I'm also considering a Beast Spirit set that enhances bestial characteristics. Nai-nek-chai would become more savage, more in tune with their animal side. Other races would become a bit like a nai-nek-chai, but without the shapechanging. Ideas and input are welcome.
Neurotic: No, haven't got the files. Which address did you send them to? Try psionm (at) hotmail dot com, although hotmail sometimes balks at large attachments. Happy to allow Shaddar Mar (although the name reminds me of something evil from the Wheel of Time, can't remember what).
Dr Simon
Explorer
A couple of late thoughts:
Neurotic: Improved Critical feat requires BAB 8+
Others: Of course, another connection could be that you know one of the existing characters. Jar'Thol, in particular, is widely travelled and friendly. It's possible that he has contacted one or more of you to tell you that he needs somebody to help his friends when he goes off to attend to family business elsewhere.
Neurotic: Improved Critical feat requires BAB 8+
Others: Of course, another connection could be that you know one of the existing characters. Jar'Thol, in particular, is widely travelled and friendly. It's possible that he has contacted one or more of you to tell you that he needs somebody to help his friends when he goes off to attend to family business elsewhere.
I'd be interested in developing a fire spirit thing for Annika, definitely. We could also make it a 'sun' thing, for the Golden Crow affinity if it's more appropriate.
It'd be nice if it was caster-friendly, but I'd understand if I lost a CL, as long as it was for something worthwhile.
Core sorcerors are unfortunately a bit bland, so it's good to find things to spice it up. Perhaps it would be a PrC or something even.
It'd be nice if it was caster-friendly, but I'd understand if I lost a CL, as long as it was for something worthwhile.
Core sorcerors are unfortunately a bit bland, so it's good to find things to spice it up. Perhaps it would be a PrC or something even.
Dr Simon
Explorer
Just a quick thought (Enworld ate my last post)
A "Fire" Spirit would be quite physical, nimble and fast. d8 HD, good BAB, good Reflex saves, 4 skill points geared towards physical skills (Climb, Tumble etc.). Probably some stereotypical fire-based powers like Fire Resistance 5, Produce Flame etc.
A "Sun" spirit would be more geared towards radiance and rulership, as epitomised by Golden Crow. Probably d6 HD, poor BAB, good Will, caster levels at levels 2 and 3, 4 skill points with skills geared towards Charisma-bases skills, Knowledge, Speak language and some perception (Spot and Sense Motive), Maybe some SLAs at 1st and later levels such as Light, Charm Person, Protection From Netherworld. Maaybe Eagle's Splendour.
A "Fire" Spirit would be quite physical, nimble and fast. d8 HD, good BAB, good Reflex saves, 4 skill points geared towards physical skills (Climb, Tumble etc.). Probably some stereotypical fire-based powers like Fire Resistance 5, Produce Flame etc.
A "Sun" spirit would be more geared towards radiance and rulership, as epitomised by Golden Crow. Probably d6 HD, poor BAB, good Will, caster levels at levels 2 and 3, 4 skill points with skills geared towards Charisma-bases skills, Knowledge, Speak language and some perception (Spot and Sense Motive), Maybe some SLAs at 1st and later levels such as Light, Charm Person, Protection From Netherworld. Maaybe Eagle's Splendour.
