Character Creation

[michael]

Demeanor/ Physical Description: This should be how others perceive your character from visuals and first impressions. Consider foes you square off against, merchants you haggle with, and the locals who watch you enter a tavern.

Persona/Roll In one or two words how do you, as a player, see your character and how do you want to use him? This is split into two parts. Persona is how you want to play your character and roll is how you want to use your character. Characters, like real people, can be complicated so there can be more than one for each if you want. Persona and Roll can even conflict (sometimes that makes it more interesting.)

Done, for both Ragnar and Troll-Ripper.

[Rabbit]

Persona: Something to prove. Dwarf on a bear.

ha ha ha! that made me laugh.

[reefwood]

Mar 20, 2010 14:52:08 GMT -5 Rabbit said:

Demeanor/ Physical Description: This should be how others perceive your character from visuals and first impressions. Consider foes you square off against, merchants you haggle with, and the locals who watch you enter a tavern.

Persona/Roll In one or two words how do you, as a player, see your character and how do you want to use him? This is split into two parts. Persona is how you want to play your character and roll is how you want to use your character. Characters, like real people, can be complicated so there can be more than one for each if you want. Persona and Roll can even conflict (sometimes that makes it more interesting.)

Some examples of a Persona; pacifist, bully, show off, jokester, hero, rebel, loner, holy warrior, peacemaker, celebrity.

Some examples of a Roll; tank defender, walking library, arcane blaster, stealthy, master thief, CLEAVE!, divine support/healer, demolisher of undead, charismatic.

This will help as I develop adventures that hopefully peek everyone’s interests (and if you find your character or your desires change down the line we can always adjust these.)

*please put both on the top of your current character sheets.

***WORK IN PROGRESS***

Demeanor/ Physical Description: Brae does not ascribe to the characteristics - pale, cold, sickly - typically associated with a necromancer. A cloak is often wrapped around his slender figure. Revealing only a smooth, olive-skinned face and dark brown hair. He carries himself with confidence but not to an arrogant degree and greets nearly everyone with a warm smile. Even potential enemies.

Persona/Roll: Helper/Debilitator

[icnivad]

Demeanor/ Physical Description: Eldrick Shay is usually wearing long white elegant, but simple robes that pronounce him a goodly wizard. He also wears small round glasses and is typically seen carrying a large spellbook. He is quiet and soft-spoken yet when he does speak, his words are intelligent and pointed. (high int, high cha)

Persona/Roll: Pacifist. Support. Eldrick will tent to avoid combat, trying to talk his way out of it beforehand, or hide behind the warriors if it comes to fighting. In a fight he will typically attempt to buff the fighters. He can also heal, but this is not his primary roll since he does not have spontaneous healing like a cleric. I'm building Eldrick to be more useful outside of combat, with a diverse spell list and good diplomacy / gather info / knowledge checks.

(Rabbit, I'll email you my character sheet)

[Rabbit]

Mar 22, 2010 13:53:06 GMT -5 icnivad said:

(Rabbit, I'll email you my character sheet)

Yes, if this is ever a better option for people feel free to do it. I believe you all have my ppdonk e-mail, use that one.

[reefwood]

What languages are abundant in the graveyard town besides Common?

Brae has one bonus language from Int mod +1. At first I had selected Goblin, but that seemed to automatically convenient, so I changed it to Dwarven for no good reason other than I knew there were dwarves in the area (based on previous adventures on this continent). But I figure since he grew up in this town, it would just be whatever else was spoken a lot here.

Halfling Bonus Languages: Dwarven, Elven, Gnome, Goblin, and Orc

[Rabbit]

Mar 23, 2010 18:17:32 GMT -5 reefwood said:

What languages are abundant in the graveyard town besides Common?

Brae has one bonus language from Int mod +1. At first I had selected Goblin, but that seemed to automatically convenient, so I changed it to Dwarven for no good reason other than I knew there were dwarves in the area (based on previous adventures on this continent). But I figure since he grew up in this town, it would just be whatever else was spoken a lot here.

Halfling Bonus Languages: Dwarven, Elven, Gnome, Goblin, and Orc

Common is most um, common.

Goblin is a both a scholars language and an adventurers language because of the goblinoids that are native here and their history.

Elven is a handy merchant tongue with the elves and half elves of Hawk's Rest near by.

Dwarf can be a handy language for commerce, but less used. (Past adventures have dealt with dwarves but they are not native to Salas.) And most dwarves of the area know common.

Draconic is also an ancient language found in the regions ancient ruins that draws scholarly attention.

Giant comes in handy to understand Troll-Speak and a few other large native monster races.

[reefwood]

Mar 23, 2010 18:41:59 GMT -5 Rabbit said:

Common is most um, common.

Goblin is a both a scholars language and an adventurers language because of the goblinoids that are native here and their history.

Elven is a handy merchant tongue with the elves and half elves of Hawk's Rest near by.

Dwarf can be a handy language for commerce, but less used. (Past adventures have dealt with dwarves but they are not native to Salas.) And most dwarves of the area know common.

Draconic is also an ancient language found in the regions ancient ruins that draws scholarly attention.

Giant comes in handy to understand Troll-Speak and a few other large native monster races.

Out of these options, Goblin seems to make the most sense since my guy isn't the commerce sort and the others aren't starting options for a halfling.

[michael]

I think you'd all agree that Troll-Ripper was very effective in our recent game. He's also not a standard option for a Paladin's mount. As I'm not terribly familiar with Paladins, or melee classes in general at these levels, I thought I'd ask: Is he significantly overpowered, or was he simply effective for the battles we fought this session?

The arguments for it just being the situation:

-We were fighting dumb enemies that didn't move around at all. This meant almost every attack he made was a full attack.
-The enemies we fought tonight seemed to have a fairly low AC for our level, and relied more on damage reduction. 18s and 17s were hitting, when for the last few games we've needed to get in the low to mid 20s.
-I forgot to adjust his BAB for a large creature. Before buffs, his attacks were at a +15/10, when they should have been +14/9.
-I rolled very well, and hit the high end of Troll-Ripper's damage on most of my attacks.

One last consideration is that he's pretty much stuck with the stats he has now until I take 3 more Paladin levels. As I don't really plan to take any, he's as good as he's gonna get.

Even with all these considerations, it's hard to ignore how much damage he dealt out. So my questions are:

1) is Troll-Ripper overpowered, and
2) is he so overpowered that we should adjust him in some way?

[reefwood]

Mar 24, 2010 4:47:07 GMT -5 michael said:

Even with all these considerations, it's hard to ignore how much damage he dealt out. So my questions are:

1) is Troll-Ripper overpowered, and
2) is he so overpowered that we should adjust him in some way?

I thought there was some mention earlier of having compared stats between standard 7th-level Paladin mounts and the brown bear, and that this mention said it seemed like the brown bear was weaker, especially compared to the rhino, and it was being selected more for flavor than for power...which I assumed - from the aforementioned comparison - it didn't have much punch.

Anyway, I decided to give a quick look at the "melee tank" 7th-level Paladin mounts and compare attack & defense numbers for them and the brown bear, and these stats are color-coded for your pleasure. Red means this stat is the best or tied for best. Blue means it is second or tied for second. If two creatures have a stat tied for best, there is no second because the next place after two is third. I got pretty specific too. A creature may have the best AC but another has the best natural armor. Also, 2 primary attacks count as better than 1 primary attack but damage may be better for the 1 attack, and 1 secondary attack is better than no secondary attacks.

Oh, and of course most of these stats go up for a special mount, but they go up the same amount for each creature, so I didn't bother adding the special mount bonuses.

Brown Bear - CR 4
HD 6d8+24 (51 hp)
Str 27, Dex 13, Con 19
AC 15 (-1 size, +1 Dex, +5 natural)
Fort +9, Ref +6, Will +3
2 claws +11 melee (1d8+8) and bite +6 melee (2d6+4)
Improved grab

Dire Boar - CR 4
HD 7d8+21 (52 hp)
Str 27, Dex 10, Con 17
AC 15 (-1 size, +6 natural)
Fort +8, Ref +5, Will +8
Gore +12 melee (1d8+12)

Dire Wolverine - CR 4
HD 5d8+23 (45 hp)
Str 22, Dex 17, Con 19
AC 16 (-1 size, +3 Dex, +4 natural)
Fort +8, Ref +7, Will +5
2 claws +8 melee (1d6+6) and bite +3 melee (1d8+3)
Rage - A dire wolverine that takes damage in combat flies into a berserk rage on its next turn, clawing and biting madly until either it or its opponent is dead. An enraged dire wolverine gains +4 Strength, +4 Constitution, and -2 AC. The creature cannot end its rage voluntarily.

Rhinoceros - CR 4
8d8+40 (76 hp)
Str 26, Dex 10, Con 21
AC 16 (-1 size, +7 natural)
Fort +11, Ref +6, Will +3
Gore +13 melee (2d6+12)
Powerful Charge - A rhinoceros deals 4d6+24 points of damage when it makes a charge.

The brown bear wins or is tied for the best Str, number of primary attacks, number of secondary attacks, total attacks, secondary attack bonus, and secondary attack damage (6 things). It is second best for Dex, Con, Fort, Ref (4 things). Each claw does an average of 12 damage and the bite an average of 10 damage, so a total average of 12 damage on a single attack or 34 damage on a full-attack if every attack hits.

The dire boar wins or is tied for the best Str and Will (2 things). It is second best for hit points, natural armor, primary attack bonus, primary attack damage (4 things). It does an average of 16 damage on any attack.

The dire wolverine wins or is tied for the best Dex, AC, Will, number of primary attacks, number of secondary attacks, and total attacks (6 things). It is second best for Con, Ref, secondary attack bonus, secondary attack damage (4 things). Each claw does an average of 9 damage and the bite an average of 7 damage, so a total average of 9 damage on a single attack or 25 damage on a full-attack if every attack hits.
One other thing to note about the dire wolverine is that it can rage, but even so, it is still the weakest and does the least amount of damage per attack, and its AC drops from best to worst, so the only significant improvement in a rage is hit points, but still not as good as the rhino, and it could wind up dying when it comes out of rage.

The rhino wins or is tied for the best hit points, Con, AC, natural armor, Fort, primary attack bonus, primary attack damage (7 things). It is second best for Ref (1 thing). It does an average of 18 damage on any attack, unless it charges which has an average of 36 damage.

Gosh, that took much longer than I expected...anyway, just for extra comparison, here are the stats for the "melee tank" 8th-level Paladin mount. No colors, but the average claw damage is 10, average bite damage is 7, average rake damage is 6. Regular full-attack does 27 damage on average, and pounce does 39 damage on average.

Dire Lion - CR 5
Str 25, Dex 15, Con 17
AC 15 (-1 size, +2 Dex, +4 natural)
Fort +9, Ref +8, Will +7
2 claws +13 melee (1d6+7) and bite +7 melee (1d8+3)
Improved grab - To use this ability, a dire lion must hit with its bite attack. It can then attempt to start a grapple as a free action without provoking an attack of opportunity. If it wins the grapple check, it establishes a hold and can rake.
Pounce - If a dire lion charges, it can make a full attack, including two rake attacks.
Rake - Attack bonus +12 melee, damage 1d6+3

Charge attack: 2 claws +13 melee (1d6+7), bite +7 melee (1d8+3), 2 rakes +12 melee (1d6+3)

[icnivad]

yeah, I've thought a lot about mounts in the last few months because of Reefwood's game, and the decision that I've come to is that the mounts are intended to be a mode of transportation for a rider. I don't think they were ever intended to be damage dealers in their own right. Plus when you consider what it would take for a bear to attack with both claws and bite, the bear would have to rear up onto it's hind legs. I think it would be hard for a rider to even stay mounted under such movement, nevermind attack on his own. Would the carrying capacity change because it would then effectively be a two legged creature? I know the rules don't really go into any of this, but it seems we might have to exercise some judgment.

The other thing to consider, is that it does not matter how good someone is at something if they are the only person in the group trying to do that thing. I know I'm not really one to talk, because I tend to make very effective characters as well, but this is something that I've been slowly learning, so maybe that makes me the perfect person to talk. This is also the exact reason I retired Kuvpax, who I felt was becoming overpowered. In my latest character, I tried to pick something that the group did not have that would still fulfill my itch to create a well crafted character, but would not overshadow any of the other players, which led me to a buffer, where my skill is measured by how effective I can make those around me, something that others can enjoy as well. We have quite a range of character building styles in this group, from people like Michael and myself who like to powerbuild, to Harry, who does not really enjoy the character creation and builds pretty much standard characters.

That said, the paladin does not really bother me personally because it's such a different focus than my character, but it did seem a little overpowered. What this means to me is that I will probably avoid buffing him and will focus my attention on other characters. This poses a pretty interesting challenge to me, one that I'm actually pretty excited about, of how to, using spells, make a monk as powerful as a dwarf on a bear. I realized in this last session that my spell selection was not particularly optimal toward this end and next time I get a chance to buy more spells, i can be a little more effective.

[michael]

Thanks for being so thorough on that, reefwood. When I initially looked at the bear before running it by Rabbit, I just compared HP, AC, primary attack, full attack, and REF saves. (I didn't bother looking at FORT and WILL saves, because they share saves with me, and I have superior FORT and WILL to any of the mounts.) I saw that the bear was second or third in all of those areas except full attack, so figured that it was a comparable mount. In practice, though, I think its full attack might be much more valuable than the other abilities.

[michael]

Plus when you consider what it would take for a bear to attack with both claws and bite, the bear would have to rear up onto it's hind legs. I think it would be hard for a rider to even stay mounted under such movement, nevermind attack on his own. Would the carrying capacity change because it would then effectively be a two legged creature? I know the rules don't really go into any of this, but it seems we might have to exercise some judgment.

Here's a thought: Maybe we should just do away with one of his claw attacks. Because he has a rider, he has to keep one front paw on the ground.
That puts his full attack at +14 (1d8+9), +9 (2d6+4), which I think is much more reasonable.

[reefwood]

Mar 24, 2010 4:47:07 GMT -5 michael said:

I think you'd all agree that Troll-Ripper was very effective in our recent game. He's also not a standard option for a Paladin's mount. As I'm not terribly familiar with Paladins, or melee classes in general at these levels, I thought I'd ask: Is he significantly overpowered, or was he simply effective for the battles we fought this session?

I tried to leave commentary out of my prior post with the stats because I wasn't trying to make a case one way or the other. I just wanted to see the numbers and compare which creatures did what best.

I think a case could be made for the bear ranking at the top of the list of the creatures I posted, but even if so, I don't think the bear is ahead by much. During the session, it became apparent that the bear could dish out serious damage, but I never thought the bear was overpowered. More like super powered. I guess this is where I see the distinction between Troll-Ripper and Kuvpax. Troll-Ripper was made with Core rules for a mostly/entirely (?) Core game with DM discretion which allowed the bear as a special mount option. Whereas Kuvpax was made with DM discretion to allow a kobold PC, plus Expansion rules that allowed him to bypass many Core rules that had been in place to keep his class balanced. Using a brown bear as a special mount probably provides an extra edge, just as using a kobold for a rogue probably provides an extra edge, but Troll-Ripper used what was inside the box and pushed it to the limit, while Kuvpax went outside the box to go over the limit. The limit being that is a mostly/entirely otherwise Core game.

The brown bear is not on the list for special mounts, but it's not like you can expect every option that works to be on every list. And it is on the Druid list for a 7th-level animal companion. As an animal companion of this level, it doesn't receive the Str and armor bonuses of the special mount, but it makes sense that the Paladin option would be more geared toward combat, and melee combat in particular, and the brown bear doesn't seem significantly tougher than other options Paladin at this level.

Mar 24, 2010 4:47:07 GMT -5 michael said:

The arguments for it just being the situation:

-We were fighting dumb enemies that didn't move around at all. This meant almost every attack he made was a full attack.
-The enemies we fought tonight seemed to have a fairly low AC for our level, and relied more on damage reduction. 18s and 17s were hitting, when for the last few games we've needed to get in the low to mid 20s.
-I forgot to adjust his BAB for a large creature. Before buffs, his attacks were at a +15/10, when they should have been +14/9.
-I rolled very well, and hit the high end of Troll-Ripper's damage on most of my attacks.

One last consideration is that he's pretty much stuck with the stats he has now until I take 3 more Paladin levels. As I don't really plan to take any, he's as good as he's gonna get.

I think these are all good reasons why Troll-Ripper shined - the situation. And going even further, I think the situation actually required a melee tank like this. There were as many creatures as PCs, and they seemed to have a decent amount of hit points and DR which made their hit points go even further, and they were probably nonliving creatures which often come with immunities and resistances that may have negated effects from spells and class abilities (i.e. could they even be stunned by Shay or life-sucked by Brae?). Plus, they were able to do at least some damage with that yell almost every round to everyone regardless of how good our defenses were, which further pressed the need to take them out fast. I wasn't paying too close attention to how everyone else was doing, but even with the melee tank, 1 PC died, and it sounded like 1 or 2 others were getting worn down and required healing to stay in the fight.

A few interesting points and a solution for party balance were brought up by icnivad. It makes sense that mounts are primarily intended for transportation, but I think using them for combat was clearly intended as well. There are rules on how to make a mount fight, ways to make it better (feats, barding, magic items, etc), and plenty of melee tank options even in the Players Handbook. What may have not been fully expected is making the mount a primary combatant or how well it could be done. The creators may have not thought it was as likely a route to take, so it may have not been tested as much. But from the rules I see, I don't think that a mount or rider are meant to be penalized for making a full attack (other than the limit on actions - i.e. can't move more than 5 ft and full-attack) because there are other mounts with "claw, claw, bite" and nowhere does it indicate any such penalties. I don't see any difference between this and "hoof, hoof, bite" which in real world terms seem to equally require the mount to rear up. All this being said, the DM is of course always free to impose house rules. I'm just making the argument for what I gather from the rules as written. And having Emrick buff the other PCs sounds like a great way to help give everyone a useful role and be at a similar power level.

Mar 24, 2010 4:47:07 GMT -5 michael said:

-I forgot to adjust his BAB for a large creature. Before buffs, his attacks were at a +15/10, when they should have been +14/9.

Also, BAB is not adjusted for size. Attacks rolls and AC are adjusted for size (size bonus or size penalty). The distinction may seem minor, but it can be important depending on what you are trying to do. Actually, maybe it just matters for grapple but thought I would point it out since the bear does grapple.

[Rabbit]

So I wanted to think this over before posting anything and here are my final rulings on Troll Ripper; overall he is fine as is. I think he did very well in the last battle for lots of reasons, but being “over powered” is not really one of them. The battle against the ‘weepers’ really was a battle scenario that suited his strong points.

Further; using a [claw, claw, bite] full attack and a rider’s full attack in a single round is allowed. A bear could rear up on its hind legs come down onto an opponent with their claws similar to a horse would with their hooves. What’s funny is I actually looked at footage of bears getting into fights (and tried to imagine a dwarf on its back) while considering this.

I feel that the brown bear, while one of the most effective mounts you could have at this point, does not out class all the mounts listed as options in the books. My approach is that they only listed the ‘core’ mounts not to create a restriction, but provide recommended options and guidelines. There is also the point that this is as good as Troll Ripper is going to get without paladin levels or magic/equipment boosting him.

Thanks for bringing this up Michael and thanks to everyone else for your feedback. I took all this into consideration while making my decision.