Forsetilafom
Genderqueer AL aasimar (Nosilebo) ranger (dandy) 3
Medium-size outsider (native)/humanoid (human)
Aura: ; Senses: Darkvision 60 ft.
Strength 8
Dexterity 14
Constitution 15
Intelligence 13
Wisdom 17
Charisma 16
Hit Points: 26
Init: +2 or +4*
Saves: Fort +5 or +7 or +9 (+3 class + 2 Con)**, Ref +5 or +7 (+3 class + 2 Dex)***, Will +4 or +5 or +6 or +7 (+1 class + 3 Wis)****
Base Attack Bonus: +3
Base Speed: 30 feet
Special Qualities: Combat style (fencing/Cayden Cailean), favored nation (Natsiyaasim)*****, favored terrain (urban)*, rumor empathy******
Special Defenses: Deathless spirit (negative energy resistance 5)***
Spell-Like Abilities: 1/day ~ detect desires (CL 3rd, DC 15)
Skills*******: Bluff +9 or +11 (3 ranks + 3 Cha + 3 class)*****, Craft (clothier) +5 (1 rank + 1 Int + 3 class), Diplomacy +11 or +13 (3 ranks + 3 Cha + 2 race + 3 class)*****, Disguise +4 (0 ranks + 3 Cha + 1 Wary), Heal +7 (1 rank + 3 Wis + 3 class), Intimidate +8 (2 ranks + 3 Cha + 3 class), Knowledge (geography) impossible or +3 or +5 (untrained + 1 Int)********, Knowledge (local ~ Nosleborre) +9 or +11 (3 ranks + 1 Int + 3 class + 2 Street Smarts)*****, Knowledge (nobility) +7 or +9 (3 ranks + 1 Int + 3 class)*****, Knowledge (others) impossible or +3 (untrained + 1 Int)*****, Perception +10 or +12 or +14 (3 ranks + 3 Wis + 3 class + 1 ioun)*********, Perform (erotic arts) +5 (0 ranks + 3 Cha + 2 race), Sense Motive +12 or +14 (3 ranks + 3 Wis + 3 class + 2 Street Smarts + 1 ioun)*****, Spellcraft +5 (1 rank + 1 Int + 3 class), Stealth +6 or +8 (1 rank + 2 Dex + 3 class)*, Survival +3 or +4 or +5 or +6 or +7 or +8 (0 ranks + 3 Wis + 0 or 1 track)**********
Feats: Combat Reflexes (B), Endurance (B), Light Armor Proficiency (B), Martial Weapon Proficiency (all) (B), Medium Armor Proficiency (B), Sense Relationships***********, Shield Proficiency (B), Simple Weapon Proficiency (B), Street Smarts
Traits: Adrift, Debauchery Defier************, Wary
Drawbacks: Dependent (shaken after failing Diplomacy check)
Languages:
Equipment: Masterwork rapier, reinforced tunic, cracked blue rhomboid ioun stone, cracked magenta prism ioun stone mounted in a wayfinder*******, noble’s vigilant pillbox (white pearl only)*************
* Favored Terrain (Ex): At 3rd level, a dandy ranger gains a +2 bonus on initiative checks and Knowledge (geography), Perception, Stealth, and Survival skill checks when he is in a city. A dandy ranger traveling through a city normally leaves no trail and cannot be tracked (though he may leave a trail if he so chooses). At 8th level and every five levels thereafter, the skill bonus and initiative bonus in the city increases by +2.
** Deathless Spirit: Asimar possess celestial spirits capable of resisting the powers of death. They gain resistance 5 against negative energy damage. They do not lose hit points when they gain a negative level, and they gain a +2 racial bonus on saving throws against death effects, energy drain, negative energy, and spells or spell-like abilities of the necromancy school. In addition, the magenta ioun prism stone adds +1 to a single save not affected by the ability score affecting the skill it boosts, chosen at sunset.
*** In addition to benefiting from deathless spirit and the magenta prism ioun stone, Fortitude benefits from Endurance. You gain a +4 bonus on the following checks and saves: Swim checks made to resist nonlethal damage from exhaustion; Constitution checks made to continue running; Constitution checks made to avoid nonlethal damage from a forced march; Constitution checks made to hold your breath; Constitution checks made to avoid nonlethal damage from starvation or thirst; Fortitude saves made to avoid nonlethal damage from hot or cold environments; and Fortitude saves made to resist damage from suffocation. You may sleep in light or medium armor without becoming fatigued.
**** In addition to benefiting from deathless spirit and the magenta ioun prism stone, Will benefits from Adrift. The four bonus represent (a) normal, (b) versus compulsion and charm effects, (c) versus the various types of effects listed in deathless spirit, (d) versus effects listed in deathless spirits that also happen to be charm or compulsion effects, if that ever happens.
***** Favored Nation (Ex): Each time he would select a favored enemy, a dandy instead selects a country with whose courtly graces he is wholly versed and studied. He gains a +2 bonus on Bluff, Diplomacy, Knowledge, Perception, Sense Motive, and Survival checks against courtiers, officials, nobles, and gentry from that nation. Likewise, he gains a +2 bonus on weapon attack and damage rolls against them. A dandy can attempt the appropriate Knowledge checks untrained to identify such people from the selected country. A dandy gains additional favored nations, and can increase the bonuses of one of his current favored nations, in the same way he would with a normal ranger’s favored enemy.
****** Rumor Empathy (Ex): A dandy can alter the flow and spread of rumors in his favor. This functions similarly to wild empathy, except that it takes 1 day (8 hours of work), instead of 1 minute, and it affects the general tenor of a rumor instead of a wild animal. A successful rumor empathy check (using Diplomacy) allows the dandy to increase or decrease the rumor’s tone by one step. For example, he could make an indifferent rumor friendly and thus positive toward its target, or an unfriendly rumor hostile and thus even more negative toward its target than it was originally. The difficulty of influencing a rumor depends on the size of the community in which it is spreading. The DC of the check is 15 in a village or smaller settlement. This DC increases by 5 and the number of days required to attempt the check increases by 2 for every settlement size category larger than a village—to a maximum of DC 40 and 11 days to affect a rumor spreading through an entire metropolis. If the rumor is only spreading through a smaller segment of the population, such as the elven district in a larger metropolis, use the population of that smaller segment to determine the DC and number of days of work required to use rumor empathy. The DC also increases by 10 if the rumor is about the dandy himself, since the dandy is obviously a biased source with respects to rumors about his own person.
******* A magenta ioun stone gives a +2 competence bonus to one skill and a +1 competence bonus to one save affected by a different ability score, both chosen at sunset. That second effect suppresses the usual effects of the wayfinder.
******** Knowledge (geography) benefits from both favored nation and favored terrain. The three bonuses, in order, are (a) normal, (b) when involving someone from Natsiyaasim, (c) when involving a city in Natsiyaasim.
********* Perception benefits from both favored nation and favored terrain. The three bonuses, in order, are (a) normal, (b) when involving someone from Natsiyaasim or in a city, (c) when involving a person from Natsiyaasim in a city.
********** Survival benefits from both favored nation, track, and favored terrain, all class features of the dandy ranger. The six bonuses, in order, are (a) normal, (b) to follow tracks, (c) when rolled against someone from Natsiyaasim or when rolled in a city, (d) to follow the tracks of someone from Natsiyaasim, (e) when rolled against someone from Natsiyaasim in a city, (f) to follow the tracks of someone from Natsiyaasim in a city
*********** Sense Relationships: You can quickly sense relationships between others and use that knowledge to manipulate them. Prerequisite: Street Smarts. Benefit: After 1 minute or more of interaction or observation, you can attempt a DC 20 Sense Motive check to get a hunch in order to intuit the relationship between any two creatures interacting with one another. If you don’t understand the language they are speaking, you take a –5 penalty on the check, and if the creatures are a different type than you, you take an additional –5 penalty on the check. If you succeed at this check by 5 or more, for the next hour, you gain a +2 bonus on Bluff checks to lie about one of the creatures to the other and on Diplomacy checks to request that one act against the other. If you fail the check, you cannot attempt this ability on the same creatures again until you gain an additional rank in Sense Motive.
************ Debauchery Defier (Social): You are particularly adept at resisting addiction. You must fail two saving throws in a row to become addicted to a drug.
************* Noble’s Vigilant Pillbox: Aura: faint divination; CL: 5th; Weight: —; Slot: none; Price: 3,600 gp. This heart-shaped charm is set with three pearls: one white, one silver, and one black. Inside, a tiny compartment usually contains smelling salts or alchemist’s kindness. Each pearl has a primary, passive ability and a secondary, active ability that activates if it is removed from the setting and swallowed (a standard action, as if drinking a potion). Swallowing a pearl destroys it. A command word activates the primary abilities of all three pearls for 1 round. When activated, the white pearl detects poison in a 10-foot radius around the wearer, dulling to a dark gray if poison is within range. If swallowed, it grants the benefit of a delay poison spell. The silver pearl detects diseases in a 10-foot radius, turning bright blue on discovery. If swallowed, it grants the benefit of a remove disease spell. The black pearl turns white if any invisible creature is within 10 feet of the wearer. If swallowed, it grants the benefits of see invisibility for 1 minute. A pillbox found with missing pearls has its price reduced appropriately; a white pearl is worth 750 gp, a silver pearl is worth 1,150 gp, and a black pearl is worth 1,700 gp.
Showing posts with label dandy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dandy. Show all posts
Friday, September 21, 2018
Friday, September 7, 2018
Well, this is just dandy, isn't it? (Fantasy Friday #12)
I wonder if there are any other archetypes that a dandy ranger could take? Let’s go look at the SRD . . . The answer is no, not at all ~ some variant 3rd party combat styles is all.
Rangers have d10 hit points, so rolling 2d10+16 (let’s make Forsetilafom the same level as Boanerges, y/n?) gives them 26 hp. A ranger’s 6 skill points per level results in Forsetilafom having 21 skill points to spend. Diplomacy, Knowledge (local), Knowledge (nobility), Sense Motive, and Perception all feel pretty core to Forsetlafom’s history and role as High Reeve. Conveniently, they’re also class skills, thanks to the dandy archetype; let’s max them out at 3 ranks each, leaving only 6 more points to spend. I find myself liking Craft (clothier), Heal, Intimidate, Spellcraft, and Stealth as secondary skills ~ that’s 5 skills, so we just decide that Intimidate is the most important, enough to get 2 ranks, and we’re all set.
Instead of a favored enemy, dandies have favored nations, gaining bonuses to a variety of social skills when used against them as well as to attack and damage. Normally, taking one’s own race as a favored enemy or one’s homeland as a favored nation might indicate either a murderer or an outcast. Forsetilafom is neither, but they also haven’t made their name protecting Nosleborre and Natsiyaasim from external threats. Quite the opposite: Forsetilafom has stood against corruption and rot that comes from within. We give Forsetilafom Natsiyaasim as a favored nation. In choosing Forsetilafom’s combat style, I’m tempted by Deceitful until I realize that, as the name implies, feinting requires Bluff and we didn’t give Forsetilafom a very high Bluff >.< So, I turn to Inner Sea Combat, which has a listing of divine combat styles for rangers. Obviously, Forsetilafom’s life doesn’t center around religion (though they, of course, honor Blessed Imye and the raskokabajhon who followed him as he wandered the world), but I’m hoping a nice, flavorful style can come out of the list. If not, I’ll just default to the bog-standard AD&D Driz’zt-made-it-trite two-weapon style. Looking through, Cayden Cailean’s style weirdly doesn’t include anything about drunken fighting, but is actually very much like fencing. The SRD even calls it “Fencing” since they can’t use IP content! At 3rd level, we can choose from Catch Off-Guard, Combat Expertise, Combat Reflexes, and Weapon Finesse. Combat Reflexes and Weapon Finesse are both hella attractive, but Weapon Finesse is only so because it would mean an additional +3 to Forsetilafom’s attack rolls! Mebbe I’ll pick it up with some generic feat slots; I take Combat Reflexes for now, cuz it feels much more thematic.
A dandy’s other class features don’t require (or, in the case of favored terrain, allow) any other choices. Rumor empathy allows Forsetilafom to manipulate the rumors that fly through a community to make them better or worse for the people they’re about, while Endurance and Track give minor bonuses to Aragorny like activities that are easily guessable by their names. Favored terrain gives a bunch of bonuses in cities; because of the dandy archetype, these will increase but not spread to other terrains as time goes on. Next level, Forsetilafom starts gaining spells!
Next thing to choose is Forsetilafom’s two feats. This is always a bit of a slog, which makes choosing Weapon Finesse rather enticing, just to cut through all of that, but let’s give Heroes of the High Court and Ultimate Intrigue a chance. I am also thinking about Amateur Investigator ~ I’ll have to give that one a glance or two, as well. After doing that and looking through Heroes of the High Court, Ultimate Intrigue, Inner Sea Intrigue, Horror Adventures, and Horror Realms, I still don’t see anything featwise that jumps out and says “I’m perfect!”, but I get drawn more and more to the Street Smarts tree and the Unimpeachable Honor tree. Vacillating between the two for a little bit, I finally settle on Street Smarts + Sense Relationships. Sense Motive is a weapon for Forsetilafom, and those two feats really help to establish that.
My reluctance had been based on Sense Relationship’s benefits to Bluff, which I hadn’t given to Forsetilafom, but I also took good note of the Enchanting Courtesan prestige class in Inner Sea Intrigue. It DID jump out at me and beg to be added to Forsetilafom, though I resisted for a little bit because its emphasis on poison was a bit heavier than I would have liked. However, the prestige class wouldn’t leave me alone and I finally figured that the poison focus would add a little bit of George R. R. Martin into the Jacqueline Carey that is inspiring Forsetilafom. That recipe, if one is careful to not overdo the GRRM (he’s very much like cinnamon in that way ~ amazing as a background note in all kinds of dishes you wouldn’t expect, like macaroni and cheese, but just takes over the dish if you don’t use an absolutely miniscule amount), sounds wonderful. The requirements for Enchanting Courtesan include being able to cast 2nd level spells including at least 2 divinations and 2 enchantments somewhere in there, Spell Focus (divination OR enchantment), 2 ranks each in Knowledge (arcana) and Perform (act OR dance ~ and I’ll modify it a bit to accept erotic arts as an option, too. Cuz duh.), and 5 ranks in Sense Motive and . . . Bluff. Whatever are we to do!?
Well, aasimars don’t provide any specific favored class bonuses for rangers and, while we could co-opt the cavalier favored class bonus with some slight tweaks, doing more damage to people from Natsiyaasim doesn’t exactly fit Forsetilafom’s style. So let’s take 3 extra skill ranks and dump them into Bluff. Since they won’t meet the spellcasting requirement for the prestige class until 7th level, we have plenty of time to spend the 6 skill ranks we still need to qualify.
Rangers have d10 hit points, so rolling 2d10+16 (let’s make Forsetilafom the same level as Boanerges, y/n?) gives them 26 hp. A ranger’s 6 skill points per level results in Forsetilafom having 21 skill points to spend. Diplomacy, Knowledge (local), Knowledge (nobility), Sense Motive, and Perception all feel pretty core to Forsetlafom’s history and role as High Reeve. Conveniently, they’re also class skills, thanks to the dandy archetype; let’s max them out at 3 ranks each, leaving only 6 more points to spend. I find myself liking Craft (clothier), Heal, Intimidate, Spellcraft, and Stealth as secondary skills ~ that’s 5 skills, so we just decide that Intimidate is the most important, enough to get 2 ranks, and we’re all set.
Instead of a favored enemy, dandies have favored nations, gaining bonuses to a variety of social skills when used against them as well as to attack and damage. Normally, taking one’s own race as a favored enemy or one’s homeland as a favored nation might indicate either a murderer or an outcast. Forsetilafom is neither, but they also haven’t made their name protecting Nosleborre and Natsiyaasim from external threats. Quite the opposite: Forsetilafom has stood against corruption and rot that comes from within. We give Forsetilafom Natsiyaasim as a favored nation. In choosing Forsetilafom’s combat style, I’m tempted by Deceitful until I realize that, as the name implies, feinting requires Bluff and we didn’t give Forsetilafom a very high Bluff >.< So, I turn to Inner Sea Combat, which has a listing of divine combat styles for rangers. Obviously, Forsetilafom’s life doesn’t center around religion (though they, of course, honor Blessed Imye and the raskokabajhon who followed him as he wandered the world), but I’m hoping a nice, flavorful style can come out of the list. If not, I’ll just default to the bog-standard AD&D Driz’zt-made-it-trite two-weapon style. Looking through, Cayden Cailean’s style weirdly doesn’t include anything about drunken fighting, but is actually very much like fencing. The SRD even calls it “Fencing” since they can’t use IP content! At 3rd level, we can choose from Catch Off-Guard, Combat Expertise, Combat Reflexes, and Weapon Finesse. Combat Reflexes and Weapon Finesse are both hella attractive, but Weapon Finesse is only so because it would mean an additional +3 to Forsetilafom’s attack rolls! Mebbe I’ll pick it up with some generic feat slots; I take Combat Reflexes for now, cuz it feels much more thematic.
A dandy’s other class features don’t require (or, in the case of favored terrain, allow) any other choices. Rumor empathy allows Forsetilafom to manipulate the rumors that fly through a community to make them better or worse for the people they’re about, while Endurance and Track give minor bonuses to Aragorny like activities that are easily guessable by their names. Favored terrain gives a bunch of bonuses in cities; because of the dandy archetype, these will increase but not spread to other terrains as time goes on. Next level, Forsetilafom starts gaining spells!
Next thing to choose is Forsetilafom’s two feats. This is always a bit of a slog, which makes choosing Weapon Finesse rather enticing, just to cut through all of that, but let’s give Heroes of the High Court and Ultimate Intrigue a chance. I am also thinking about Amateur Investigator ~ I’ll have to give that one a glance or two, as well. After doing that and looking through Heroes of the High Court, Ultimate Intrigue, Inner Sea Intrigue, Horror Adventures, and Horror Realms, I still don’t see anything featwise that jumps out and says “I’m perfect!”, but I get drawn more and more to the Street Smarts tree and the Unimpeachable Honor tree. Vacillating between the two for a little bit, I finally settle on Street Smarts + Sense Relationships. Sense Motive is a weapon for Forsetilafom, and those two feats really help to establish that.
My reluctance had been based on Sense Relationship’s benefits to Bluff, which I hadn’t given to Forsetilafom, but I also took good note of the Enchanting Courtesan prestige class in Inner Sea Intrigue. It DID jump out at me and beg to be added to Forsetilafom, though I resisted for a little bit because its emphasis on poison was a bit heavier than I would have liked. However, the prestige class wouldn’t leave me alone and I finally figured that the poison focus would add a little bit of George R. R. Martin into the Jacqueline Carey that is inspiring Forsetilafom. That recipe, if one is careful to not overdo the GRRM (he’s very much like cinnamon in that way ~ amazing as a background note in all kinds of dishes you wouldn’t expect, like macaroni and cheese, but just takes over the dish if you don’t use an absolutely miniscule amount), sounds wonderful. The requirements for Enchanting Courtesan include being able to cast 2nd level spells including at least 2 divinations and 2 enchantments somewhere in there, Spell Focus (divination OR enchantment), 2 ranks each in Knowledge (arcana) and Perform (act OR dance ~ and I’ll modify it a bit to accept erotic arts as an option, too. Cuz duh.), and 5 ranks in Sense Motive and . . . Bluff. Whatever are we to do!?
Well, aasimars don’t provide any specific favored class bonuses for rangers and, while we could co-opt the cavalier favored class bonus with some slight tweaks, doing more damage to people from Natsiyaasim doesn’t exactly fit Forsetilafom’s style. So let’s take 3 extra skill ranks and dump them into Bluff. Since they won’t meet the spellcasting requirement for the prestige class until 7th level, we have plenty of time to spend the 6 skill ranks we still need to qualify.
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