Exploratory Thread: Mercenaries (3.5e)

[Ben Zwycky]

I need to look them over again, first. Do you want to build a couple of NPCs for me to use until others join?

I could, same starting gp limit or reduced? I'll build a wiz 7/loremaster 10/archmage 3 and lvl 7 druid to use instead of Chrs, and a lvl 20 cleric and lvl 7 fighter or Wiz to replace what OBP was going to run. IC, what was your LL character going to be again?

I realized something yesterday, which is part of why I dropped in. The premise is that your characters are moving to a new world. It wasn't intended that you would know who the new gods are, though, which might be a problem. I could arrange a special meeting with the deities of your choice. If you've other ideas on how you'd like to meet your new gods, I'd be happy to hear them.

Well the NPC loremaster could use his daily legend lore ability or bardic knowledge-like ability to find out about the new world's gods, I'm not sure about how to contact them directly other than the dragon disciple and loremaster gathering info about the local religions and asking their priests or leaders. Anyone else have any ideas?

[Carrikature]

I could, same starting gp limit or reduced? I'll build a wiz 7/loremaster 10/archmage 3 and lvl 7 druid to use instead of Chrs, and a lvl 20 cleric and lvl 7 fighter or Wiz to replace what OBP was going to run. IC, what was your LL character going to be again?

The same gp limit. IC has sent me a Rogue 7 build.

[Ben Zwycky]

So we have two rogue 7's now? My LL character was a rogue. I suppose I could do something else for my LL character, but it seemed a good fit for my dragon disciple.

[Pinoy]

I realized something yesterday, which is part of why I dropped in. The premise is that your characters are moving to a new world. It wasn't intended that you would know who the new gods are, though, which might be a problem. I could arrange a special meeting with the deities of your choice. If you've other ideas on how you'd like to meet your new gods, I'd be happy to hear them.

If we are moving to a new world, have we been transported here? Or did we came here via planes?
This means also that we do not know anyone here.

[Carrikature]

If we are moving to a new world, have we been transported here? Or did we came here via planes?
This means also that we do not know anyone here.

Yes, you'll be transported to the new world. No, you won't know anyone here.

[Pinoy]

Yes, you'll be transported to the new world. No, you won't know anyone here.

So we have to establish our name and network

[Ben Zwycky]

Okay,

NPC characters are going to be cleric 20 with dwarf fighter 7 aiming for dwarven defender (so both will be lawful good)
and wiz 7 loremaster 10 archmage 3 with druid 7 (both neutral good), the druid will be basically the same as the one I used in Teal's game, just with a different animal companion.

For my LL character, to distinguish from IC's rogue without being too far from my original, I'm considering a halfling rogue 4 wiz 3, working towards arcane trickster. With that in mind, I have a couple of questions concerning sneak attacks with spells:

Can a spell involving a touch attack such as ray of frost or shocking grasp be used to deliver a sneak attack? If so, does the sneak attack damage count as damage done with the energy type of the spell (e.g. 2d6 +d3 cold damage for ray of frost)?

Can magic missile be used to deliver a sneak attack, since it has no miss chance?

[Pinoy]

Dropping by to say hello

[Irate Canadian]

Still working on my other character...

[Ben Zwycky]

OK, finally done with all the NPC's and the adjustments to my character. Below are links to their character sheets:


Loremaster (I gave him the craft wondrous item feat, since a wizard with a nearly full blessed book is a good person to have that):

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...20archmage.pdf

His spellbook:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...k%20spells.pdf

His LL druid cohort:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...20lvl%2007.pdf


Dwarf Cleric 20 (I made him a dwarf so he could be related to the fighter, giving the fighter more of a connection and reason to follow him, and also make the cleric a more logical choice to have the craft magical arms and armor feat):

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...20lvl%2007.pdf

His LL Dwarf Fighter cohort:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...ighter%207.pdf



The final versions of my characters:

Dragon Disciple:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...%20fighter.pdf

His LL Halfling rogue/wizard cohort:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...ighter%207.pdf

His spellbook:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/...0spellbook.pdf



So with these guys I have armorsmithing, weaponsmithing, crafting magical arms and armor and crafting wondrous items all covered, though weaponsmithing is only lightly covered for now (+15). All we need now is an elf or ranger with some extra skill points to focus on Craft (bowmaking) and we'll be pretty well set for crafting. I don't know whether Carrik would allow a dwarven magic forge or two to be installed in our headquarters, but thst's not in the D20 SRD, so I won't depend on it.


I hope no-one minds me not buying the wand of barkskin, now that IC is going to be running a high-level druid. Instead, I'm setting aside 7500 gp for IC to get an additional 2 pearls of power level 2 for his high-level druid (they cost 4,000 each, so I'm just short of being able to buy two of them for him.) That way he'll be able to cast barkskin (or any other level 2 druid spell) an extra 2 times a day.

[Carrikature]

Awesome!

So with these guys I have armorsmithing, weaponsmithing, crafting magical arms and armor and crafting wondrous items all covered, though weaponsmithing is only lightly covered for now (+15). All we need now is an elf or ranger with some extra skill points to focus on Craft (bowmaking) and we'll be pretty well set for crafting. I don't know whether Carrik would allow a dwarven magic forge or two to be installed in our headquarters, but thst's not in the D20 SRD, so I won't depend on it.

As a quick side-note, I'm anticipating that you'll eventually hire people to do crafting full time. I'd be surprised if you want your L20s to spend much time doing mundane crafting. You'll most likely end up with a castle-type setup with full support staff.

[Ben Zwycky]

Awesome!



As a quick side-note, I'm anticipating that you'll eventually hire people to do crafting full time. I'd be surprised if you want your L20s to spend much time doing mundane crafting. You'll most likely end up with a castle-type setup with full support staff.

Okay, but if they are crafting full time, will they go up in level over time? If not, we'll have no-one to craft magical items for us (at least not any requiring a high caster level).

[Ben Zwycky]

Also, those two craft-boosting items the cleric has, they are intended to be loaned out to whichever dwarves we end up having on our crafting support staff. I suppose they should be counted as a guild resource, we could get some similar gloves for elf bowmakers at some point.

[Carrikature]

Okay, but if they are crafting full time, will they go up in level over time? If not, we'll have no-one to craft magical items for us (at least not any requiring a high caster level).

Things like this will be kept more generic for sanity's sake. You gain reknown which 'unlocks' access to a higher quality crafter. Whether the crafter went up in level or was simply replaced with someone more competent is unseen and inconsequential. The quality level of crafter affects maintenance cost, crafting time, etc.

[Ben Zwycky]

Okay, so I should just take out all crafting skills and feats from the characters and invest them in something else, then?