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[LordBucket]

Character submissions - Feedback required

I've reformatted things for consistency and generally fleshed out equipment. I've also taken the liberty of adding some equipment like food and water skins and scabbards and clothing and belts and shoes and things that everyone should reasonably have, as well as in some cases tools that would be necessary to perform the skills that were chosen. In some cases this resulted in making some guesses about materials and equipment types.

Please review, let me know if I got anything wrong, if the clarifications are ok and please answer any attached questions.

Spoiler: Andres (click to show/hide)

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Andres
Skills: ?Lore?(Major) Blocking(Minor)

Background:
Born to two retired adventurers, Andres joined up with the Adventurer's Guild and now looks to go on adventures for fun and profit.

Description:
Brown hair, brown eyes, male, average body type, good-quality clothes.

Equipment
Worn
 * Wooden roundshield(arm)
 * Steel, visorless barbute helmet
 * Chainmail tunic
 * Fine clothes
 * Leather gloves
 * Leather boots
 
 * Leather belt
   * Leather scabbard (one-handed longsword)
   * Leather scabbard (Steel dagger)
   * Cloth Pouch (10 copper)
   * Goatskin (3 days of water)

 * Leather backpack
   * 20 feet of hemp rope
   * The Adventurer's Handbook
   * Cloth bag(glass, stoppered vial of insect repellent(1 dose))
   * Cloth pouch(1/2 pound of crushed glass)
   * Food(Dehydrated fruit, nuts, beef jerky)(3 days)
   * Leather scrollcase(Area map)

Stone of Hubris (small stone on a rope necklace: +1 chance of an enemy choosing to monologue before finishing off the wielder)

Going to veto this. It's not consistent with the flavor of magic in this world.

Adventurer Lore

That's fine, but would you clarify for me what exactly this skill is supposed to do? I'd prefer to avoid differing expectations resulting in you being unhappy later. It seems to me that your intent is for this skill to enable you to know things that an adventurer would know. Ok, that's fine. But you are an adventurer. So you would probably know them anyway. if you want this to mean that you're the guy who knows misc. stuff...ok, I can probably work with that. But if you're planning to roll general skillchecks for every little thing like "hey, do i know just the right place to strike zombies to get a +1 to every attack?" or "Oh, hey...we just found a strange artifact! I check my adventuring skill to see if I know how to activate it!" that's too powerfully broad for a single skill.

What are you are expectations for this skill?

Spoiler: Dustan Hache (click to show/hide)

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Dustan Hache

Skills: Axefighting(Major) Trapping(Minor)

Background:
A Stalwart bounty hunter, This soldier of fortune was originally just a hunter and a lumberjack. What drove him to this path of madness and bloodshed is unknown, other than a stray swing on a fellow's part and a panicked battle. He was left standing, though his fellow was not as lucky. He rapidly took to battle, leaving the family estate to his younger brothers and sisters. He now seeks power and fame, using his mixed of life skills and combat prowess to fuel his travel to it.

Description:
A straight male with brown hair and brown eyes. He is of average build, neither thin nor muscular, neither wiry nor fat. He wears a simple brown and gray wool tunic, with mud stained gray wool pants.

Equipment:

 * Rusted chainmail tunic
 * Gray wool tunic and pants
 * Leather boots
 * Leather belt
   * Belt loop: Sharp, mid-long hatchet
   * Belt loop: 12 foot length of hemp rope with steel hook on one end
   * Goatskin (3 days of water)
 * Small, leather shoulder-slung pack
   * Steel knife
   * 100 foot roll of hemp twine
   * Food(Dehydrated fruit, nuts, beef jerky)(3 days)


This one's pretty straightforward. If you're ok with the clarifications above, let me know, and you're approved. Note however, that you've implied some things and then deliberately not chosen skills that match. For example, please don't expect to be very successful using your rope hook to entangle opponents with no relevant skill in doing so.

Spoiler: DigitalDemon (click to show/hide)

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DigitalDemon

Skills Stealth(major), Trapping(Minor)

Background:
DigitalDemon is a scoundrel in most meanings of the word. She has stolen from leaders, murdered diplomats, and spends her free time trapping animals to watch them suffer, and only eats them after they've bled to death. Recently, she was locked away for a minor crime, and in this time, she was approached by a weathered man who, obviously, was not righteous in any way, but still wanted the necromancer dead. "He's taken all the fun out of evil, he's just killing everyone!" This obviously upset DigitalDemon, and so, she has a plan to take down this necromancer, but it may require some helping hands.... Thankfully, there's a thieves guild in town which could possibly provide her with a few meat shields companions.

Desctription
Long, white hair, green eyes, (what some would call) an attractive body, rugged, dirty and torn clothes.


Equipment:
 * Hooded black cloak
 * Torn, dirty clothes
 * ?Bow?  slung over chest
 * Soft leather tunic
 * Leather belt
   * Leather sheath (chipped steel dagger)
   * Goatskin (3 days of water)

 * Cloth over-the-shoulder rucksack
   * Food(Dehydrated fruit, nuts, beef jerky)(3 days)
   * Cloth pouch (20 copper coins)
   * 2 ?Alchemical smoke devices?
   * Steel knife
   * 100 foot roll of hemp twine

 * Shoulder quiver, 10 arrows

(stolen)

Is it important to you that I track which of your gear is and isn't stolen? I can do that if it is, but nobody in your party is going to know unless you tell them and the zombies are unlikely to care very much.

Basic animal trap

What do you mean by this? If you're thinking of a steel-jawed beartrap or a modern mousetrap, those are anachronistic by several hundred years. Era-appropriate animal trapping would typically be done with string and twig snares, sticks holding up rocks, etc. I've added a knife and twine, accordingly.

Leather armor

Since you've chosen stealth as a skill, I'm assuming your armor is soft leather, not hard-boiled.

smoke bombs

Ignited via fire or water, choose one.

50 gold coins

We're not using not D&D currency scales. Gold is rare here. I've adjusted that downward.

longbow

Are you sure you want a longbow? The longbow is a notoriously difficult weapon to use, and I notice that you didn't take any skill in it.I assume it's for hunting, but the longbow is really more of a field warfare weapon than a hunting weapon. Sure, you could theoretically hunt with a longbow, just like you can theoretically walk up stairs in diving fins...but it's a peculiar choice. It's probably going to be a little inconvenient chasing after deer carrying around a weapon as big as you are, for example, and not even having any skill with one, you're not likely to be very successful at that. I notice that you did choose trapping as a skill, but archery and trapping are very different skillsets.

If you really want to lug around a five or six foot long weapon that's probably not even sized correctly for you because you specifically said you stole it...and then try to sneak around carrying something as big as you are...I'm ok with that. But I kind of get the impression you have a very different set of expectations from this than I do.

Would you clarify this?

Spoiler: Hawk (click to show/hide)

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Skills: Archery(Major), Hunting(Minor)

Background:
A simple hunter turned mercenary to improve his lot in life. He's developed quite a knack for killing with a bow and became rather well-known for it. It wasn't too surprising to see a man burst into the doors of his guild to request his assistance with a certain dangerous sounding job.

Description:
A tall male with unkempt black hair and grey eyes. He's thin, but not weak-looking by any means. His well-worn clothes are dark in color.

Equipment

 * Dark tunic and pants
 * Dark leather jerkin
 * Dark wool cloak
 * ?Bow? slung over chest
 * Leather belt
   * Beltloop: flanged steel mace
   * Sheathe: steel dagger
   * Goatskin (3 days of water)
 * Leather archery bracers
 * Leather quiver (20 arows)
 * Small backpack
   * Food(Dehydrated fruit, nuts, beef jerky)(3 days)

leather armor

Hard or soft?

longbow

Would like confirmation that you do in fact want to use a longbow. That's fine if it's what you want, but i want to make sure we're talking about the same thing, rather than me thinking medieval english longbow while you're thinking WoTC D&D longbow that you can casually carry over your shoulder. For example, compare this picture to this picture. the second one is a longbow.

Spoiler: Moonlit Shadow (click to show/hide)

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Skills: Dual wielding(Major), Night Awareness(Minor)

Background:
The Moonlit Shadow is from a different land. He is new to this place, and has little knowledge of it. He tells little of his past, but his manners and ways seem to imply that he is from a nobleman's household, despite his best attempts to disguise them. Overland, he says, people use not magic, but iron for everything

Description
An average height male with brown/blonde hair. Noble features, with slightly opaque mottled blue-green eyes.

Equipment:
 * Fine clothes
 * Leather boots
 * Leather belt
   * Scabbard: ?basket-hilt rapier?
   * Scabbard: ?parrying dagger?
   * Goatskin (3 days of water)
 * Shoulder-harness bag
   * Ornate wooden box(mysterious gem)
   * Food(Dehydrated fruit, nuts, beef jerky)(3 days)

Overland, he says, people use not magic, but iron for everything

Ok. But that's the norm here too.

mysterious gem

Anything I should know about this?

longsword and a shortsword, 1-hand hilt

Dual Wielding Longsword+Shortsword

I'm just sort of filling in the blanks, noble background, dual wielding...I assume you're thinking a fast rapier/parrying dagger sort of dueling style, right? Like, this is what you had in mind, right?

[spümpkin]

Spoiler: Feedback (click to show/hide)

Okay, here we go.

1. The stolen thing isnt really important, just kinda put it there.
2. Yeah, I meant a snare sort of thing, so what you've done is good.
3. All good.
4. Probably water, as to be as stealthy as possible.
5. Thats fine.
6. Hmm. I think I might stick with the bow, but only if I could get some kind of shortbow, or something? Otherwise, I don't really mind if you take it out. I would think people use shortbows more often for hunting, which is all she plans on doing with it.

[Dustan Hache]

Character submissions - Feedback

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Yes, this is fine with me. though in counter to your statement, he could lay a trap using the rope and hook which would be affected by his minor skill of trapping. Obviously it wouldn't be as effective as a dedicated trapping tool, but it could still come in handy in a large number of situations. besides, there will be time to practice, hopefully.

[LordBucket]

stuff

Ok. I switched out the bow.

DigitalDemon approved

stuff

...ok, that's fine. I was thinking you wanted to use it like a whip to yank zombies off their feet and stuff based on your background as a lumberjack, which...yeah, pretty much no.

Dustan Hache approved

[Dustan Hache]

stuff

...ok, that's fine. I was thinking you wanted to use it like a whip to yank zombies off their feet and stuff based on your background as a lumberjack, which...yeah, pretty much no.

Dustan Hache approved

you're joking right? That would be unrealistic! More likely he would scale up a tree with it, just out of sight and reach, then dropkick his target if they got too close.

[Hawk132]

How about a hard leather breastplate (and helmet, if I get one), while everything else is soft?

As for the bow, can I get a composite bow? If not, I'll just stay with the longbow (and yeah, I did mean the longbow).

[Andres]

Character submissions - Feedback required

Spoiler: Andre (click to show/hide)

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Andre
Skills: ?Lore?(Major) Blocking(Minor)

Background:
Born to two retired adventurers, Andres joined up with the Adventurer's Guild and now looks to go on adventures for fun and profit.

Description:
Brown hair, brown eyes, male, average body type, good-quality clothes.

Equipment
Worn
 * Wooden roundshield(arm)
 * Steel, visorless barbute helmet
 * Chainmail tunic
 * Fine clothes
 * Leather gloves
 * Leather boots
 
 * Leather belt
   * Leather scabbard (one-handed longsword)
   * Leather scabbard (Steel dagger)
   * Cloth Pouch (10 copper)
   * Goatskin (3 days of water)

 * Leather backpack
   * 20 feet of hemp rope
   * The Adventurer's Handbook
   * Cloth bag(glass, stoppered vial of insect repellent(1 dose))
   * Cloth pouch(1/2 pound of crushed glass)
   * Food(Dehydrated fruit, nuts, beef jerky)(3 days)
   * Leather scrollcase(Area map)

Stone of Hubris (small stone on a rope necklace: +1 chance of an enemy choosing to monologue before finishing off the wielder)

Going to veto this. It's not consistent with the flavor of magic in this world.

Adventurer Lore

That's fine, but would you clarify for me what exactly this skill is supposed to do? I'd prefer to avoid differing expectations resulting in you being unhappy later. It seems to me that your intent is for this skill to enable you to know things that an adventurer would know. Ok, that's fine. But you are an adventurer. So you would probably know them anyway. if you want this to mean that you're the guy who knows misc. stuff...ok, I can probably work with that. But if you're planning to roll general skillchecks for every little thing like "hey, do i know just the right place to strike zombies to get a +1 to every attack?" or "Oh, hey...we just found a strange artifact! I check my adventuring skill to see if I know how to activate it!" that's too powerfully broad for a single skill.

What are you are expectations for this skill?

Spoiler: Feedback (click to show/hide)

1. You got my name wrong in both the character description and in the spoiler title.
2. Relates to general stuff an adventurer might know such as where to get quests (taverns), whether to accept propositions from women (never), and where the bad guys' city hideout is (the sewers (friggin sewer levels...)). Stuff like that. Also relates to stories of famous adventurers which may help overcome similar and specific obstacles (like knowing how to trick a sphinx by reading about Perseus) and potentially unlocking new quests.

[ATHATH]

Name: ATHATH
Background: ATHATH is a fifty year old man. From a young age, he was obsessed with the abnormal and supernatural. This trait was soon discovered by the Preservers, a group dedicated to the collection, reproduction, and usage (for good) of magical creatures and items, and he was brought into their order. He rose through the ranks, and eventually became a mentor for other members of the Preservers. When one of his former pupils became a prominent and evil necromancer, ATHATH knew what he had to do...
Description: Fifty year old man, walks with a staff, wears brown robes, blue eyes, brownish-white hair, friendly, Obi-Wan Kenobi-ish personality, NG
Equipment:
Rations
Clothes
Ordinary Oak Staff
Horse (female, non-magical horse with no name; ATHATH is quite fond of it)
Wand of Wonder (Please use one of those d10,000 random-effect generators for it; the standard wand is too boring) with Infinite Charges (so that we won't have to keep track of them)
Skills: Magic Item Appraisal, Knowledge of Paranormal Creatures

Is this too magical?

[IronyOwl]

Could you elaborate a bit more on the setting, magic in particular? I'm getting a Conan movies vibe as far as magic/tech/society goes, but I'd like to make sure that's semi-right and get some more details.

[LordBucket]

Wand of Wonder with Infinite Charges

Is this too magical?

Yes.

Magic will work on the scale of...spend the afternoon attempting to do a thing, and at the end of the day you'll have a chance of success. No standardized "spells" that are bottled and consistently repeatable.

Magic Item Appraisal

Magical artifacts are things that could take months or years to create. there will be no casually sorting through the pile of glowing swords after every battle to see which of the low-level mooks had +2 swords, then tossing away the piles of worthless +1 ones.

Think Tolkein.

Every magic item had a name because it was a unique artifact. Glamdring would glow in the presence of orcs. That was a unique artifact known to Elrond because it was a notable enchanted blade. Even immortal Maia like Gandalf typically only had one or two magic items to their name. Look at the One Ring. That was basically, the most notable artifact in the history of Middle Earth. And what did it do, exactly? For those unable to control it, it sucked them into the wraith world. For those able to control it, it facilitated telepathic mind control exclusively to a very small group of people who happened to be wearing receptor rings, and only if you were powerful enough to make that happen. It didn't even do it directly, and the effect was a slow and uncertain thing.

No "push a button" spell effects.

Low magic.

If you want to play a wizard, pick a skill that describes a specfic field. For example, warding. So maybe the party builds a wooden perimeter and you want to ward it so that zombies stay away. That's a pretty substantial effect, so you'll gather up some materials and maybe spend a few days walking the perimeter chanting and spreading zombie blood mixed with fish guts, or whatever, and after 2-3 days I'll make a roll. And after that roll, I'll give you a vague indication of how confidant you are that it worked. For example, "you think it might help" or "you're pretty confidant that most zombies would probably perfer to avoid this place" or something similarly indefinite. And in reality, I'll apply that as a probability modifier. Maybe you're "reasonably confidant that your ward is fairly sturdy" and maybe that results in a 50% chance that any zombies who come near decide to leave it alone. And then after I roll, maybe the zombies will decide to leave it alone, but the magic will be weakened so the next time it only provides a 40% effect. And then maybe the zombies overcome that effect and as a result the effect is further weakened reducing it to a 20%. And then after another day or two it's gone unless it's constantly reinforced. Of course, if you continue reinforcing it day after day, it will gain in strength, and over time it could become a very effective ward. But it's never going to be perfect, and you're never going to be entirely sure how effective it is except by observing the results.

One possible example.

Could you elaborate a bit more on the setting, magic in particular? I'm getting a Conan movies vibe as far as magic/tech/society goes, but I'd like to make sure that's semi-right and get some more details.

Conan the movies, yes that's pretty spot on. There are at most low double-digits world of world-class sorcerers in the world like Thulsa Doom and Toth-Amon, but even Akiro was pretty up there. And if i recall correctly, his most impressive feat(*) over both movies was holding a door closed for a few minutes. Impressive, because he made it happen then and there. Overt, on-demand effect visible plainly to the eye is incredibly powerful and rare magic. Note that your opponent, the necromancer, is a fledgling, soon-to-become world-class sorcerer. just coming into his power. You are not.

If you want to play a wizard, that's totally ok, but see the above. Every single spellcast will be a unique spellcast, most spells will be cast on the order of a day or more, and effects will typically be described in uncertain terms.

If you have specific questions let me know, but I think my response to Atath probably answered them.


(*) Oh, right. Forgot he basically brought Conan back from the dead in the first movie. So yes, definitely world class wizard material. But even in that case, it took him a day and a night to do, there was a lot of stuff involved, it only worked because the spirits hadn't yet taken Conan's soul, and what he actually did was convince the spirits to take Conan's girlfriend's soul instead of his make them visible so his friends could fight them off resulting in them taking one of their souls later instead. Anyway, the general point remains.

[LordBucket]

can I get a composite bow?

That's fine, but note that composite bows tend to be especially susceptible to moisture. I'll toss in a leather case.

How about a hard leather breastplate (and helmet, if I get one), while everything else is soft?

Boiled leather breastplate over soft leather tunic, plus open sallet steel helmet, that's fine.

Hawk132 approved

[Kashyyk]

Spoiler: character submission (click to show/hide)

Background: Initially a caravan guard, Kashyyk quickly rose in rank due to a combination of martial competence,  leadership and boot kissing. He ended up leading a small gang of mercenaries, hiring themselves out to protect merchants,  guard towns and strongarm peasants. His underlings did most of the actual work, whilst he focused on making sure they worked as a cohesive unit.
Description: shorter than average, with tousled brown hair and perpetual stubble.
Equipment:
Maille haubergion over gambeson
Nasal helmet
kite shield
one handed sword
One handed spear
Traveling cloak
Rucksack with several days rations
Money
Skills: leadership (major), swordsmanship (minor)

As might be inferred, I'm hoping to make up for my general incompetency with a gang of npcs. I hope I cm get something like that to be balanced in your system.

[LordBucket]

As might be inferred, I'm hoping to make up for my general incompetency with a gang of npcs. I hope I cm get something like that to be balanced in your system.

What sort of in-game application did you have in mind for that leadership skill?


Moonlit Shadow and Andres pending. I'm finding myself distracted by a needlessly long essay about swords and dual wielding that I'll probably mostly delete.

[LordBucket]

My skills not there? :/

Fixed

I was thinking of basically dual shortswords, except replacing one with a a longsword. Both are used for parrying and attacking (though obviously only one at a time, not both slicing at once). It's basically like the longsword one would use with a shield, but an extra shortsword instead of said shield. Longsword is about 2.5~3 ft long (that's blade length not entire thing), and shortsword about 1.75 ft (again, blade).

Fighting style is: Block with whichever's closest - if shortsword then stab with longsword - if longsword then step forward, ducking if needed (if it was deflected vertically) and stab/slash with shortsword. Whichever sword that's deflecting is supposed to 'cling' to the enemy's blade and just keep it away while they're otherwise defenseless.

I mean, against zombies that's not too important and the extra blade will just be to kill more than one thing at once as I won't have to use as much effort since zombies no parry. But anyway this thing is meant to be sandboxy and men will die by my hands.

Meh.

(Lengthy dissertation about swords and dual wielding deleted)

1) Would you link me a picture of what you're thinking when you say "longsword" so I know for sure that we're talking about the same thing?

2) There are some issues with what you propose. However, it's reasonable to dismiss most of them based on the Rule of Fun.

3) However, I think it's not fair to give you twice as many attacks for the same skill cost. If you want multiple attacks, make regular swordfighting your major skill, dual wield your minor, and I'll give you the second attack with either a to-hit or defense penalty. If you're not willing to do that, then no, I'm not giving you free double attacks.

Gem is gem. Not much, I think. Uh...uhm... yeah, I think that's just flavor. Also incentive to do stuff (if it's stolen, lost, etc)

As in possible roleplaying hook? Ok, those are good to have.

[LordBucket]

name

Fixed.

2. Relates to general stuff an adventurer might know such as where to get quests (taverns), whether to accept propositions from women (never), and where the bad guys' city hideout is (the sewers (friggin sewer levels...)). Stuff like that. Also relates to stories of famous adventurers which may help overcome similar and specific obstacles (like knowing how to trick a sphinx by reading about Perseus) and potentially unlocking new quests.

I'm willing to accept that, and if you're willing to accept that, we can approve your character as he stands. However, i advise you pick something else because I don't think it's going to be very useful. Most of the things you're describing are things that will be handled by players, not die rolls. I'm not going to roll a die to tell you whether it occurs to you to go talk to the mysterious figure in a cloak sitting at the table shrouded in shadows in the corner of the tavern.