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A Sword Without a Hilt: A Song of Ice and Fire/D&D 3.5 Crossover

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Preliminary level up plan for Garin.

@TotallyNotEvil, @TalonofAnathrax Suggestions? The spells aren't set in stone, of course, but it's getting difficult to find fitting spells for Garin that are available on his spell lists. I figure Fire Shuriken would give him a nice side business in manufacturing one-use magical weapons, Vital Strike is nice for a surprise Sneak Attack, and Heart Ripper isn't bad for a SoD spell as Garin's got a semi-respectable DC for his spells.

Is there some reason not to pick up GTWF for him at this point? His BAB is high enough to qualify now, unless ya'll have something better in mind?

[] Garin Level Up
-[] Class: +1 Twilight Hunter
-[] Feat: Staggering Strike
-[] Skills (9 points): +1 Gather Information, +1 Hide, +1 Move Silently, +1 Sense Motive, +1 Spot, +7 Concentration
--[] Retrain (+3 points): -3 Disguise
-[] Spells:
--[] 1st Level: Alibi
--[] 3rd Level: Nightmare Terrain
--[] 4th Level: Implacable Pursuer
 
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Goldfish said:
Preliminary level up plan for Garin.

@TotallyNotEvil, @TalonofAnathrax Suggestions? The spells aren't set in stone, of course, but it's getting difficult to find fitting spells for Garin that are available on his spell lists. I figure Fire Shuriken would give him a nice side business in manufacturing one-use magical weapons, Vital Strike is nice for a surprise Sneak Attack, and Heart Ripper isn't bad for a SoD spell as Garin's got a semi-respectable DC for his spells.

Is there some reason not to pick up GTWF for him at this point? His BAB is high enough to qualify now, unless ya'll have something better in mind?

[] Garin Level Up
-[] Class: +1 Twilight Hunter
-[] Feat: Greater Two-Weapon Fighting
-[] Skills (9 points): +1 Gather Information, +1 Hide, +1 Move Silently, +1 Sense Motive, +1 Spot, +4 Listen
-[] Spells:
--[] 2nd Level: Fire Shuriken
--[] 3rd Level: Vital Strike
--[] 4th Level: Heart Ripper
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No Concentration? Aww. He can thus be stopped from spellcasting simply by casting something like Haboob that deals AoE damage on his turn.
Fire Shuriken? Why? He's a Keyholder, he doesn't need a side business.
Garin doesn't really need a short-ranged Save-Or-Die: he can just stab things to death. I like Implacable Pursuer because he can't really stop a spellcaster from casting defensively and Teleport away (remember that cleric who served Tiamat?), but with this longlasting spell he can straight-up track them down, approach by stealth and kill them. It also fits very well with his "assassin" vibe.
 
@egoo I'm fairly certain the plan was to stop summoning fiends for sacrifices after the dawn age tree.

At least for things that aren't on the prime material anyway.

It's not a safe way to Hoover up power from the lower planes. At all.
 
TalonofAnathrax said:
NO
I will fight you
Everyone does NOT need a second custom PrC, just for five levels
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I'm in this for capstones and neat effects that work themselves in the narrative.
Like Dany becoming an Outsider (other things she got notwithstanding), Lya becoming functionally immortal and fucking the laws of universe, Waymar becoming a full-fledged Hero, or Garin becoming the very definition of "sneaky" through Hide in Plain Sight and his connection to shadows.

Get me something that will work that way in the story, and you'll face no arguments from me.
TalonofAnathrax said:
Hellfire Warlock
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Dragonfire Warlock, lets be honest with ourselves.

zxzx24 said:
@egoo I'm fairly certain the plan was to stop summoning fiends for sacrifices after the dawn age tree.

At least for things that aren't on the prime material anyway.

It's not a safe way to Hoover up power from the lower planes. At all.
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You are overanalyzing something that was clearly intended as a joke and even marked with a relevant emoji.
Stop that.

And we aren't growing Dawn Age Tree now, so I'm not stopping either :p

After it is grown...
Well, we'll need at the very least a thousand HD more to turn all other Heart Trees of OG's fireproof, DP said that such a ritual, if developed, will need a lot of energy.

And then there's Valyrian Steel works.
With corpse of Mammon merely making it cheaper to make, instead of giving us a constant source, we'll still have a very real need for Devil blood.

So no, we aren't stopping summoning.
Maybe dropping to a somewhat easier-going pace once DA!HT is grown, but not stopping.

Rest assured thought, that we are specifically targeting Mammon's devils, and no one else.
Thankfully, their names we have in abundance.

It's not like we can become more hated by him, and we don't need other Devil Lords to look too close at our activities for now.
 
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TalonofAnathrax said:
No Concentration? Aww. He can thus be stopped from spellcasting simply by casting something like Haboob that deals AoE damage on his turn.
Fire Shuriken? Why? He's a Keyholder, he doesn't need a side business.
Garin doesn't really need a short-ranged Save-Or-Die: he can just stab things to death. I like Implacable Pursuer because he can't really stop a spellcaster from casting defensively and Teleport away (remember that cleric who served Tiamat?), but with this longlasting spell he can straight-up track them down, approach by stealth and kill them. It also fits very well with his "assassin" vibe.
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Garin is late to the Concentration game. If we're going to put points in it, we should retrain some to raise it higher. A lot of his abilities don't really rely on spellcasting, though.

I was joking about selling the Fire Shurikens. They would make good weapons to give our Inquisition staff, Lawmen, and Night Watch. He could produce dozens of them each day from leftover spell slots.

I'm fine with Implacable Pursuer.
 
egoo said:
I'm in this for capstones and neat effects that work themselves in the narrative.
Like Dany becoming an Outsider (other things she got notwithstanding), Lya becoming functionally immortal and fucking the laws of universe, Waymar becoming a full-fledged Hero, or Garin becoming the very definition of "sneaky" through Hide in Plain Sight and his connection to shadows.
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They are all achieving this before level 20 (Waymar at 15, Garin at 16, ect). Therefore, for their last few levels I just want them to keep taking good classes, but I don't want to give them a second awesome capstone through a custom PrC. They already got their captsone around level 15-17!
 
Goldfish said:
Garin is late to the Concentration game. If we're going to put points in it, we should retrain some to raise it higher. A lot of his abilities don't really rely on spellcasting, though.
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Give him 5 or 6 points, and an item of +10. Boom, instantly he's decent.
He doesn't need Concentration maxxed or anything, just enough to get by despite conditions with fixed DCs (like "on a moving vehicle") or the kind of spells that deal a few d4 or d6 of damage on your turn (Acid Arrow, some damaging Fog derivative spells...)
 
TalonofAnathrax said:
They are all achieving this before level 20 (Waymar at 15, Garin at 16, ect). Therefore, for their last few levels I just want them to keep taking good classes, but I don't want to give them a second awesome capstone through a custom PrC. They already got their captsone around level 15-17!
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and I'm not asking for something as powerful as capstones taken through a 10-level-long PRC.

But there are prc's with neat capstones that last only for 5 levels.

Case in point, Teana's new one.

Also, I'm okay with Lya getting nothing 'awesome' from her capstone forth.
She'll get mythic ranks soon enough anyway :V
 
TalonofAnathrax said:
Give him 5 or 6 points, and an item of +10. Boom, instantly he's decent.
He doesn't need Concentration maxxed or anything, just enough to get by despite conditions with fixed DCs (like "on a moving vehicle") or the kind of spells that deal a few d4 or d6 of damage on your turn (Acid Arrow, some damaging Fog derivative spells...)
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[X] Garin Level Up
-[X] Class: +1 Twilight Hunter
-[X] Feat: Greater Two-Weapon Fighting
-[X] Skills (9 points): +1 Hide, +1 Move Silently, +1 Sense Motive, +1 Spot, +5 Concentration
-[X] Spells:
--[X] 2nd Level: Fire Shuriken
--[X] 3rd Level: Vital Strike
--[X] 4th Level: Implacable Pursuer
 
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Goldfish said:
o_O

It was actually supposed to be a like, but the icons on my phone screen are super small. Most of the time I notice a mistake and correct it.

I just thought the harvesting turned out well and I liked the idea of the Fire Whales forming a company, inspired by Viserys, then marketing their gems across the Planes.
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That's a good idea, they are Int 6 for the most part though, so they will require help with it, we should be giving them that help, we should also help them, with figuring out how to most efficiently leverage their new wealth for protection.

I'm going to just ask you, as I have no idea about what gear is best and such, with a budget of 36000 IM, what gear would be most efficient at turning a basic Fire Whale into a murder machine?

The budget being 3 months income for a pod of 20, 3 months income seems within what it should be reasonable for a pod to get on loan.

Or if we don't want to help them get loans, their budget will be 12000 IM, what items can turn a Whale into a champion of it's pod for that price?

And as you can see by the later part of my comment about your hugs, I mainly just felt the need to talk about how great my day had been.

For now I think we are just going to be buying all their gems, we can easily resell them, and they will have to unite a bit more before they are prepared to make trade deals.
DragonParadox said:
Around twenty or so.
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With pod sizes of 20, and 1 harvester being able to harvest at least 5 Whales a day, it should be more efficient to make harvesting stations, instead of having harvesters follow the Whales around, if the Whales don't want to have to come to a monthly meeting to get their gems harvested, we can make Harvester ships that travel from pod to pod.
 
egoo said:
and I'm not asking for something as powerful as capstones taken through a 10-level-long PRC.

But there are prc's with neat capstones that last only for 5 levels.

Case in point, Teana's new one.

Also, I'm okay with Lya getting nothing 'awesome' from her capstone forth.
She'll get mythic ranks soon enough anyway :V
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Okay, so how about Garin who only has 4 more levels?
Vee and Tyene don't need to turn into Outsiders or anything. They can just get better at spellcasting and use magic to become immortal, like everybody else does.
Same for Waymar or Richard: they don't need a massive change to mark them getting to level 20. The game won't magically stop there or anything. No, at level 20 they'll be getting better raw numbers and will be killing more impressive monsters, and that's just fine.

Goldfish said:
[] Garin Level Up
-[] Class: +1 Twilight Hunter
-[] Feat: Greater Two-Weapon Fighting
-[] Skills (9 points): +1 Hide, +1 Move Silently, +1 Sense Motive, +9 Concentration
--[] Retrain (+3 points): -3 Disguise
-[] Spells:
--[] 2nd Level: Fire Shuriken
--[] 3rd Level: Vital Strike
--[] 4th Level: Implacable Pursuer
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Nope. He needs that Disguise to qualify for his PrC, I believe. And maxxing his sensory skills is rather important for his character concept, IMO. I just want him to have 4 or 5 ranks in Concentration (he can use gear for more bonuses anyway, and he doesn't need to cast level 9 spells defensively or anything so high DCs shouldn't be a thing for him).
 
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TalonofAnathrax said:
Okay, so how about Garin who only has 4 more levels?
Vee and Tyene don't need to turn into Outsiders or anything. They can just get better at spellcasting and use magic to become immortal, like everybody else does.
Same for Waymar or Richard: they don't need a massive change to mark them getting to level 20. The game won't magically stop there or anything. No, at level 20 they'll be getting better raw numbers and will be killing more impressive monsters, and that's just fine.


Nope. He needs that Disguise to qualify for his PrC, I believe. And maxxing his sensory skills is rather important for his character concept, IMO. I just want him to have 4 or 5 ranks in Concentration (he can use gear for more bonuses anyway, and he doesn't need to cast level 9 spells defensively or anything so high DCs shouldn't be a thing for him).
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Fixed.
 
tarrangar said:
That's a good idea, they are Int 6 for the most part though, so they will require help with it, we should be giving them that help, we should also help them, with figuring out how to most efficiently leverage their new wealth for protection.

I'm going to just ask you, as I have no idea about what gear is best and such, with a budget of 36000 IM, what gear would be most efficient at turning a basic Fire Whale into a murder machine?

The budget being 3 months income for a pod of 20, 3 months income seems within what it should be reasonable for a pod to get on loan.

Or if we don't want to help them get loans, their budget will be 12000 IM, what items can turn a Whale into a champion of it's pod for that price?

And as you can see by the later part of my comment about your hugs, I mainly just felt the need to talk about how great my day had been.

For now I think we are just going to be buying all their gems, we can easily resell them, and they will have to unite a bit more before they are prepared to make trade deals.

With pod sizes of 20, and 1 harvester being able to harvest at least 5 Whales a day, it should be more efficient to make harvesting stations, instead of having harvesters follow the Whales around, if the Whales don't want to have to come to a monthly meeting to get their gems harvested, we can make Harvester ships that travel from pod to pod.
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I wouldn't focus all the effort on one champion. 2k or 3k would be enough to really enhance them, so instead equipping five or six pod protectors would be better.
 
TalonofAnathrax said:
Okay, so how about Garin who only has 4 more levels?
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He gets to retrain his Vampire Hunter into something else, if something sufficiently awesome is found :V

TalonofAnathrax said:
Vee and Tyene don't need to turn into Outsiders or anything. They can just get better at spellcasting and use magic to become immortal, like everybody else does.
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I never implied that a necessary fate for casters.
On the contrary, I prefer uniqueness that isn't built on getting disadvantages of Outsiders.
And, well, if Dany has it it isn't that unique anymore.

I'm fine with main progress being better numbers.
I'm not fine with not getting maybe small, but narratively compelling abilities along the way.

Most PRC's brought up before have few such things, or st least not to a point where I think they would suit the character.

Hmph. I find it very difficult to explain my point of contention with original PRC's and what exactly I want out of them.
I will @ you if I ever find a good way to.
 
egoo said:
I never implied that a necessary fate for casters.
On the contrary, I prefer uniqueness that isn't built on getting disadvantages of Outsiders.

I'm fine with main progress being better numbers.
I'm not fine with not getting maybe small, but narratively compelling abilities along the way.

Most PRC's brought up before have few such things, or st least not to a point where I think they would suit the character.

Hmph. I find it very difficult to explain my point of contention with original PRC's and what exactly I want out of them.
I will @ you if I ever find a good way to.
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I think I understand, and I even agree to a point (that's why I suggested classes like Earth Dreamer or Holt Warden for Vee, which are nice and thematic but won't exactly be gamebreaking or anything).
I just really really really don't want to be creating new PrCs for them. Finding PrCs that will grant a few cool abilities over their last few levels? Excellent! For example Abjurant Champion will make Waymar even more of a spellsword (quickened abjuration spells, improved abjuration AC defenses), those PrCs would give Vee some very cool "aspect of nature" abilities, and any rogue PrC would give Garin a few thematic abilties. But none of them would have a new massive capstone or anything, they're just less boring than 5 levels of a class with no features.
 
Goldfish said:
I wouldn't focus all the effort on one champion. 2k or 3k would be enough to really enhance them, so instead equipping five or six pod protectors would be better.
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Yeah but from what we have heard about the Whales culture, most Whales are gentle creatures with an occasional bull with extra aggression, so it's not guaranteed a pod will have more than 1 or volunteers for the pod protector role, there will probably be quite a few pods that prefer to rely on only hired protectors, because no one in the pod want to fight if they can avoid it.

Working out how to equip groups would be good too, but we should probably do both, because some pods will have 1 big bull that want to fight, and the rest preferring to pay others to fight.

Then there's the fact that a pod of 20 have an income of 12k a month, so even if they decide to have multiple pod protectors, unless they only invest 1 months income in their protectors, they will want to upgrade a few months down the line.

I expect that at some point the value of Whale gems will sink, but for now all pods who agree to have their gems harvested will be very rich.
 
TalonofAnathrax said:
I think I understand, and I even agree to a point (that's why I suggested classes like Earth Dreamer or Holt Warden for Vee, which are nice and thematic but won't exactly be gamebreaking or anything).
I just really really really don't want to be creating new PrCs for them. Finding PrCs that will grant a few cool abilities over their last few levels? Excellent! For example Abjurant Champion will make Waymar even more of a spellsword (quickened abjuration spells, improved abjuration AC defenses), those PrCs would give Vee some very cool "aspect of nature" abilities, and any rogue PrC would give Garin a few thematic abilties. But none of them would have a new massive capstone or anything, they're just less boring than 5 levels of a class with no features.
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On the other hand, counter argument to "NO ANIME POWER UPS!"

We're fighting Elder Evils now with bullshit "that's barely a save" rolls in an average encounter.
 
Goldfish said:
[X] Garin Level Up
-[X] Class: +1 Twilight Hunter
-[X] Feat: Greater Two-Weapon Fighting
-[X] Skills (9 points): +1 Hide, +1 Move Silently, +1 Sense Motive, +1 Spot, +5 Concentration
-[X] Spells:
--[X] 2nd Level: Fire Shuriken
--[X] 3rd Level: Vital Strike
--[X] 4th Level: Implacable Pursuer
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So if you're investing in Greater Two-Weapon Fighting, I guess that means his last feat will be Perfect Two-Weapon Fighting? I mean you're already a step away from maximizing benefits for his full attack there.
 
Crake said:
We're fighting Elder Evils now with bullshit "that's barely a save" rolls in an average encounter.
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And a wizard with decent gear can reliably defeat them.
Hey, check out the stats of the "official" Elder Evils. Sure they're mighty and terrible, but they can be killed. Theoretically, Viserys alone could handle one right now (more easily if given 3 Companions) - it'd just be incredibly risky and I'd prefer not to chance it, but it can be done.
 
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