OOC Chat

[betaraybill]

I'm on east-coast time, located in Michigan (which is in the same time zone as Maine, for some reason). A bigger issue for me is that I keep odd hours. More specifically, I work 12 hour shifts overnight (7p - 7a) approximately every other day (I have Thu/Fri off every week). So, I'm probably doing most of my posting in the evening of Japan, or some such nonsense.

Anyway, what you said regarding posting rules seems to make sense. As long as everyone is posting fairly regularly it shouldn't be an issue.

Regarding proficiencies, I hope it's not too complicated. I think it's more flexible and I've found that it helps players really get interested in their characters. Or course, that might not be necessary. I hope you guys are interested already. So anyway, I'll think about it.

--edit-- I meant to mention, PO actually has some pretty good ideas. One reason I like it is because I always wanted a little more room for character customization (without totally relying on looking up kits in a bazillion source books), and I never really liked the skills and feats system that eventually ended up replacing the proficiency system. So, PO is kind of a compromise. Although, as I mentioned, a good portion of it is very poorly executed.

I'm about to go on one of those shifts I mentioned, so I'll be back in about 12 hours

[HorizonsDream]

Well, I keep weird hours myself since I work graveyard. I tend to post when I wake up in the evenings before I go to work. I sometimes post more on my nights off. It all depends on how active the thread is. As it stands at the moment, I tend to have some catching up to do when I wake up because everyone posts while I'm asleep. With a DM on my schedule (sorta), that might help me out a little bit.

[Breila]

My posting hours vary, but I normally get to log in at least once in 24 hours, except when I'm away from home, when I'm generally without internet access. But I will let you know beforehand (The first such period will be 25 March to 4 April).

To clarify what I understood about character creation:
I've decided to play the levite priest and herbalist, his name will be Alon, which I have been told means "Oak" in Hebrew (and is an existing male name).
So I take 80 points and distribute them to the stats (STR, DEX, CON, INT, WIS CHA) as I see fit?

[betaraybill]

Horizon - I'm running the thief class exactly as described in the PHB. So, if you've decided that's what you want to go with, you can go ahead and allot ability scores and thieving skills.

Breila - Yes, you understand correctly regarding ability point allotment. I should mention, however, that there are two different kinds of Levite priests - Anointed Priests and Temple Guardians. I will have a write-up in an a different thread on this board before I go to sleep.

Jaded & Horizon - You should decide what to tribe you want your characters to belong (Once again, I'll post a more detailed write-up in another thread). If you are siblings, you will naturally be from the same tribe. From what you've both said so far, I am assuming that you wish your characters to be of low class - at least in terms of monetary standing. Think about that a little bit. Do you guys come from a noble family who has fallen on hard times, or has your family always been poor? What are your ages? Which of you is elder? Also, do you have any other family (Father, mother, aunts, uncles, siblings)? If so (particularly for Jaded) are you a first son? Second? Seventh? Or are you the head of your household?

I seriously doubt there will be anyone else joining us at this point, so as soon as we get characters in order, we can begin. I realize that is mostly waiting for me to post info for you guys - Within the next two days, you should have everything you need. Sorry it's going slowly - it's a fair amount of information to convey. I really appreciate your patience, everyone.

Oh, and Breila - Good name choice

-- Edit - OK, I'd like to work on this some more, but I need to go to sleep. I will return.

[Breila]

What about these stats for Alon:

STR 13, DEX 9, CON 11, INT 13, WIS 16, CHA 14

The 80 points make for characters to be quite strong overall. I like mine to have a "weak spot" because that's usually fun to play.
With the strenght he has, Alon could be a Temple Guardian, but aren't they kind of tied to "their" temple?

[JadedDM]

I'm assuming the Peasant Warrior is just like the kit in the Complete Fighter's Handbook? What are the differences then, mechanically, from the Fighter, Soldier, and Simeonite Warrior?

[betaraybill]

Breila - That's fine. In answer to your question - no. Temple Guardians are just as free to wander as Anointed Levites; that's part of the fact that the upkeep of Temples is part of the responsibility of all Levites. No Levite is tied to a particular temple except by choice. The flip side of that is that all Temple Guardians are required to come to the defense of a temple or tabernacle if they are in the area, just as wandering Anointed can be called upon to perform religious services at a temple or tabernacle.

For the record, a tabernacle is a essentially a moving temple. They are tents, altars, etc. loaded upon camels and other pack animals, usually in the retinue of a high ranking anointed priest. They are treated in all the ways the same as a stationary temple.

Jaded - your assumption regarding the peasant warrior is mostly correct, with a few slight modifications. Essentially the peasant hero functions just a like a normal fighter mechanically, except that: 1. They must be of low social order 2. They have additional responsibilities and benefits within the community. They're actually very similar to priests in that regard.

[Breila]

Reading through the material you prvided, I think that Alon will be an Anointed Priest.

[JadedDM]

I'm sort of torn myself. As far as tribes, I guess it doesn't matter. I can be a fighter and Horizon can be a thief in any of the tribes (except Levite, that is). At the moment, I'm leaning toward either the Tribe of Judah or the Tribe of Benjamin.

As far as class, I'm torn on that, too. I'm wondering if now instead I should go with soldier or just a regular fighter over being a peasant warrior. For one, I'm not sure how much combat we're going to see in this game, and I don't want to gimp myself too much. Plus, if my character was away at war, it would explain why Horizon, an unmarried woman, would be forced to turn to thievery to survive.

I'll discuss it with Horizon further when I next see her.

[betaraybill]

If you want my advice, Jaded, I wouldn't worry too much about gimping your character in combat. You still have plenty of options as a Peasant Warrior to be a capable fighter. I'm going to go ahead and post some my rules for proficiencies - I've simplified them considerably in the interest of streamlining the character creation process.

I have another question I wanted to ask the folks here who are more experienced at PBP games - what's your preferred method of dice rolling? In the old days, I used a combination of the honor system and various online dice rollers... I've always found the online dice rollers to be a bit jarring, personally. So, let me know what you think.

I also want to make you guys aware at this point that I will be using many of the combat maneuvers available in the PO book Combat & Tactics. If you're not familiar with these rules already (I know Jaded said he wasn't; I don't know about Breila and Horizon) they are considerably different from those presented in the Complete Fighter's Handbook - and in my opinion, much simpler. I'd like you to not sweat it too much at the beginning of the campaign here. My goal is to slowly ease into it so that nobody needs to waste a bunch of time reading rules right now. You can familiarize yourself with them little by little as you go.

The reason that I've adopted these rules is I find the combat rules presented in the PHB to be abysmally dull. I will try to post all of the rules that I'm using in the most clear and concise way possible. Remember though, it's not vital that you read them all right now.

[HorizonsDream]

I don't know anything about the Player's Options books.

[JadedDM]

I use Invisible Castle in my games. It allows you to link dice rolls directly. It works pretty well, because you can double check to make sure nobody is cheating their rolls by doing a search on their username. The only real downside to it is that now and again, the site goes down. But that's been fairly rare.

The main reason I'm reconsidering the peasant warrior thing is I had this sudden idea about playing a mounted warrior. I've always wanted to do that. Although a lancer wouldn't be possible in the setting, it might still be fun to be able to ride into battle on a war horse.

[betaraybill]

Horizon - I hope it's not too off-putting for you. I've tried to keep it as simple as possible, and for the most part you should be able to ignore it, or figure out what you want to use from it at a pretty slow pace. Please let me know if this is gonna be problematic for you. I am always happy to give quick advice regarding what you might want to know about it if you want to elaborate more on what you want your character to be able to do. Most of the relevant information is posted in the Proficiency Point System thread.

Jaded - Mounted Warriors are all too rarely used in D&D games. That's probably because they tend to be complicated - but by all means, do it if you want. Thanks for the advice on dice rolling. I'm looking into it now.

[betaraybill]

OK, so everyone at this point should have all the info they need to get their characters together. Please send me a pm with all relevant information (for Breila, that should include the spells that you intend to have memorized on the first game day), including a proposed list of equipment that your character would carry on his(or her) person on an average day, when not expecting to travel etc. I'd also like some short character histories, describing your families, general temperament, etc. We can talk about it from there.

For the record, I saw that the tables I made didn't turn out the way I wanted them to. I'll go back and edit them. I need to do a bit of editing in a lot of that stuff. I'm sorry about that - hopefully it's still legible.

[JadedDM]

Yeah, making tables in this forum is a pain.

Horizon and I talked about it, and have decided our characters will be from the Tribe of Judah.

Non-Weapon proficiencies will work exactly as described in the PHB, except that all costs are doubled. Thus, if a NWP in the player's handbook costs 1 proficiency slot, it will cost 2 proficiency points to acquire.

What about cross-class proficiencies? For instance, Gaming would normally cost a thief 1 point, but a wizard 2 points. So using your system, Gaming would cost a thief 2 points and a wizard 3 points? Or four? That is, is the extra point for cross-class proficiencies doubled, as well, or just added normally to the new total?