Hi everyone, it's Helen here, the voice of Azu on Rusty Quill Gaming. Today, I'm here to advertise Myth and Moon, a podcast just launched on the RQ network. Myth and Moon is a solo play D&D podcast. featuring two storytellers sharing one world. Follow the show's hosts, Cooper and James, as they work in tandem to unveil mystery, intrigue, and conversation.
James's episodes portray the story from the hero's perspective, a struggle of courage, redemption, and hope, whilst Cooper stirs the pot from the shadows as the villain, embroiled in devious schemes, treachery, and a lust. power. Every decision echoes. Every dice roll matters. and character choices shape whose destiny prevails.
For fans of tabletop role-playing games, immersive audio dramas, and classic adventures, Fates Collide and Dice Decide in this thrilling exploration of good versus evil. Search for Myth and Moon wherever you listen to your podcast. or go to www.rustyquill.com for more information. Have fun, and we'll see you later. Welcome to episode zero of the Rusty Quill Gaming Podcast, an actual play podcast for extended tabletop RPGs. We're coming to you from London, England.
I'm your host at Game Master, Alex Newell, and with me today are... James Ross. Bryn Monroe. Ben Meredith. Lydia Nicholas. And it's our first ever recording. Woo! Filmed as part of a live studio audience of us as well. In an empty room. In an empty room. Okay, so... I'm still watching you. If you want to skip straight to the story, you should probably be starting on episode one because this is actually episode zero.
It's the first of our sort of meta casts. These are bonus episodes talking about the mechanics of the game that we're playing, sort of how we made characters, leveling up, that kind of thing. So just to tell you a bit more about the game itself, we're playing the Pathfinder D20 system.
For anyone who wants to know, that's based on the old 3.5 Dungeons & Dragons, but they kind of streamlined it and got rid of some of the kinks and the teething problems. It's open source, and it's available legally and totally above board at www. d20 pfsrd.com we'll include that in the lid dumps we didn't need to kill that
to get this. Yeah, you're talking this is illegal. Yeah. It's never fun anymore. And this isn't underground and exciting. Now I know that, oh, right, well, I'm off to traffic some opium.
You're not supposed to be in character yet. Anyway, yeah, the reason we're using that is, firstly, it's the system that I'm most familiar with. Because I'm GMing, I'm game mastering, it's useful for me to sort of... at least understand the system that i'm going to be using that said i'm probably going to be deferring to brin quite a lot as i'd say he's the more experienced gm out of the two of us
But you've played a lot more systems than I have definitely. That's probably true. You'll both muddle along. Oh, bless. Let the record show that Bryn has 10 D20s in front of him arranged by size and colour. by small metal men. And that's true. And one of the main reasons using Pathfinder is it's got a really broad scope. One of the benefits of the rules is they're a bit massive, but it covers pretty much most eventualities and there's so many third-party systems.
that are still available for free online i mean i totally recommend that everyone buy the books by the way if you're listening it's really, really encouraging them to keep going with the open source stuff. So anytime that you can buy a book, please do. The reason we're doing the open source version is just so that listeners at home can follow along and... Stole it and moved to Paris. But we love him. We love him. He's great. I used to love him. He makes lovely macaroons.
Yeah, and I'm fat now, thanks to him. Just so everyone knows as well, the story world is completely original. I made it myself. Is it completely original? It's quite heavily based on the real world. It is drawing a lot from two things. One... The Eberron setting for Dungeons & Dragons 3.5. And also, yeah, reality is in there because I'm really bad at geography. So I thought it'd be a good learning experience for me, you know, to base it in the real world. I might actually learn where things are.
But what that means, though, is sort of from a mechanical standpoint, quite a lot of time I'm going to be reskinning things. So I'll be having a monster that's got all of its stats.
But, you know, instead of it being like a dog, I'll say it is a... a weird feral human i don't know um but as long as it sort of mechanically is the same i can reskin it and it'll still be all right but i'll always try and make sure i tell people what the monster is so they can look at this is a dog but purple yeah totally The only limit to your imagination. Purple dogs, blue dogs, guys. It's crazy. It's crazy. We like to have fun here. You don't have to be mad to podcast here.
But I've got a mug! Sorry, carry on. It's all right. Meta joke in a meta podcast. Yeah, I was about to say, if you're going to get meta, then this is definitely the podcast. Okay, so today we're covering character creation specifically, how we got to where we sort of did with the characters. So that when we start with episode one, we all know what we're doing, all know what our system is, what the rules are.
For anyone who's not played an RPG before and this is the first time you're listening, you're curious. basically how it works is that you you're pretending to be your characters you sort of improvise conversations and you play out scenes with one another and kind of informally because it's a tabletop and anytime that your character does something so whether it's trying to like seduce a guard or you know fire a catapult or even just you know straight up hit something
Yeah, totally. Brin makes that noise. Brin makes that noise. And then he tells us what happens. What it is, it's determined statistically. It's all randomised, but... Character creation is where we basically factor in the things that your character's good at by giving you modifiers. That means when you roll that dice, you're getting a plus two, a plus three, whatever, and it's basically to reflect that you're good at something but can still mess it up.
And so with that in mind, I'm going to go around and get people to give a little brief introduction to what their character's name is and what they look like, starting with you, James. So my character, Sir Bertie McGuffingham, he looks like a tall Hugh Laurie playing Bertie Worcester in the early 90s. Fry and Laurie, Jeeps and Worcester, except taller and fatter and armoured like a tank. Tell us a bit more about your armour. Yeah, my character's armour is...
Huge and incredibly flashy because Sebastian Bertie McGuffingham is an idiot and just went in to the armour show and was like, I want the best armour, please. And they totally saw him coming. So it's very much the sort of armour that he would wear if he were perhaps going clubbing. So the family crest of the McGuffin family is the Maltese falcon. See what I did there? Quite a piece of that. And yeah, so the armour is.
A big falcon's head with big falcons everywhere. Falcons, falcons, falcons. And the falcon at the top has got red eyes. They don't have any real function. They sort of glow in the dark. Not enough to actually see by, but enough to be a nuisance. that's it big flashy armor and it's all cunningly carved it's very much like showroom armor Okay, cool. And Bryn, your character's name and what they look like? So my character is called Hamid Salah Haroun Al-Tahan.
And he is Egyptian and he's a halfling. And these are both quite obvious traits. So, you know, he's got sort of golden brown skin. He's quite tall for a halfling. He's a lot less hairy than the- He is very well manicured and very well put together. He always wears a three-piece suit and he's got very, very neat hair, always clean shaven. He's got large brown eyes.
have occasionally been described as soulful. No. Genuinely, we have an artist for the podcast and she was asking for character descriptions and then I went, I'm really sorry, what? One of their eyes is soulful and she goes, it's always soulful or pained or distant. I don't see a need to avoid stereotypes. I mean, you know, they can be useful. For bigger. I'm anti-soulful. Do you mean tropes? When creating a character, it's nice to do some things that are...
Classic. It's nice to do some things that are unusual. My dwarf has a beard. So far, this doesn't sound like a character profile. This sounds like an online dating profile. Okay, okay, cool. And Ben, your character's name and... What do they look like? My character's name is Sulfur Makais. He is a sentient eye golem. He's a dwarven cleric. Oh my god, he has a beard. He has a beard. Yeah, Zulf Smith. He is from the West Country. It is the funniest of the four countries, so carry on.
Yes, and how he looks. So he is a rather grizzled person, a salty sea dog, if you will, wearing sort of quite cheap off the peg scale armour. He's wearing a, usually wears a sort of large wax kind of storm coat, not bright yellow. He could look like Paddington. I totally should. Blonde hair, green eyes, blonde sort of haystack hair. So not very, well, not ponytail or anything like that, but just like a random haystack. Although here's...
Beard is sort of a pair of mutton chops that have got way out of hand, go right down his face and kind of, they're like reverse pig- It's like Boris Johnson's grandfather. Is your beard braided? Do you have a braided beard? Yeah, two braids down each. yeah wearing so he's got a trident that is a character oh yeah he's telling me a good thing he's always seen with his trident and he's got a driftwood dolphin
Anything inconvenient below the waist? Oh yeah, he hasn't got a leg. I forgot about that. His left leg is missing. Let's examine that a bit more. So I really like that choice because I'm a big fan of not power gaming, which is where you sort of optimise your character a lot. And if there's one thing that giving yourself a peg leg is doing, it's not power gaming. And why is that, Ben? Why is that? It's because you get a hell of a lot of penalties on things.
I'm limited to 10 foot speed, so running is not in my repertoire. I can totter rapidly, but not too rapidly. It's a penalised stealth as well. It might do. It's very hard to stealth when you're going... Is the first mission going to be obtaining a slip? In episode one, we fashioned some kind of rudimentary moccasin for your peg leg. Yes, it is a metal peg leg.
Oh, so it clangs. Well, it's probably got like a little wooden... foot not like a foot foot but a little like a rubber thing but obviously like cork yeah cork sure okay and so lid if you can tell us a bit more about your character's name and the way that they look uh so yeah my character's name is sasha racket uh she's a small wiry woman with
black hair cut very short she's generally pretty agitated so is always running her hand through her hair and it spikes up in all kinds of directions in terms of what she looks like you'll kind of realize that there's almost deliberately not much to know lots of kind of dark, well-cut bits. Unintrusive kind of clothes and a nice big leather jacket. Kind of like social camouflage. Yeah, you're going to find it hard. Description runs off her, like water off sort of unobtrusive ducks.
bizarrely, your actual description of her... is quite extensive and apt, given it's someone who you're basically saying it's really hard to describe her because she deliberately makes herself hard to describe. Yeah. You might notice that the jacket and the clothes are slightly well cut. and well fitted but you'd only really notice if you focused hard which would be hard to do because she doesn't draw much attention.
and is generally sitting in shadowy corners. Okay, cool. So that's just a bit of a lowdown on everyone's characters. Now we're going to go into a bit more about the mechanical detail of how we arrive at something that we can actually use in the game that reflects those characters. So with the Pathfinder system, again, if you go onto that d20pfsrd.com, they've got a really helpful page on character creation, which just runs through all the basic things.
So the first thing that you need in most tabletops of the D20 system, six main ability scores, which are strength. dexterity, constitution, intelligence, wisdom and charisma, with strength being kind of obviously how strong you are, how hard you can hit, how heavy you can carry, things like climbing as well, things that have a good strong strength element.
dexterity you know how quick you are to dodge rolling acrobatics that kind of thing uh constitution you know how hard you are are you other you know a northern stock who can withstand the cold or like a desert tribe who are very good at the heat you know something that will determine how healthy you are basically Intelligence, what it says on the tin. In this game system, it gives you more skill points, which are like specific skills that you're good at. but it's also how you approach a problem.
wisdom being the flip side of that coin which is more intuitive experience. The way I've always had it described to me is intelligence is someone who can look at the sky and know it's going to rain. Wisdom is someone who knows to take an umbrella. One is experience based, the other one is sort of more learned and academic. A lot of people say it's likability of the character. I tend to think of it more as how good they are in social situations at getting things done.
So sort of organising a team, if you're going to be a good leader. Persuasiveness. Yeah, persuasiveness, also lying, things like that. Basically, you couldn't be a good leader and have bad charisma. You just couldn't. I do like to think of it as... A lot of people do, and I totally understand it because physical attractiveness is a quality.
and that said i have had great games where someone's played someone ugly but just incredibly personable and likeable which is kind of a nice subversion of that there's a few ways you can go with it So just going round, I set this as a high fantasy game, according to Pathfinder, which is a 20 point buy system. the system's on there they have a table that will automatically do it for you what that means is you have a certain amount of points you can spend on your basic abilities
And then from that, you can build your basic ability. So just running around quickly, James, what are your basic abilities for course? Sure. I am strength 16, dexterity 12. Constitution 16, because I've eaten all the pies. Intelligence 12. Wisdom 8, because I thought it was a good idea to eat all the pies. And Charisma 13. So yeah, basically what you've got there is a big bruiser who's actually quite sort of likeable and very, very healthy. Cheery oaf. Yeah, pretty much. I fell over.
No one's helping me up yet. I mean, obviously this is what comes first in all the guides. but you want to know what you're aiming for. So we did actually sort of at least have a vague idea of what classes we were planning to become before we made the ability score. So James was going to be a fighter of some kind. heading in that direction. So we prioritize strength.
Yeah, I mean, I'll certainly dedicate a bit of time towards the end of the episode, but certainly it's always worth discussing with everyone what you all want to be doing before you build, for the love of... build it and then meet up and go cool I'm a fighter called Jeff and I'm a dwarf who are you I'm a fighter called Clive and I'm a dwarf who are you and it just goes on Clive is a great name for a dwarf Clive the dwarf
But like in all seriousness, you really do need to make sure that you sort of are compatible. So we spent a good amount of time making sure that like we're not treading on each other's toes because inevitably one person's just by sort of look of the draw ends up. slightly better and then suddenly become the go-to guy and that other person's just kind of left. Plus, I mean, from a survivability standpoint.
If everyone is a fighter, it's fine until someone falls down and then everyone just runs around not able to help them up, you know? Why is hitting this wound with this plaster not helping? Yeah, exactly. I will sneak around the wound. We've also got four people and there's a very classic, you know, D20. Oh, yeah.
split when you've got four people in your party you take a fighter an arcane caster a divine caster and a rogue pretty much which is what we did yeah it's it's it's become it's become a trope For a reason. Again, stereotypes aren't necessarily bad. I still think we should have gone with the original four druids plan. The Pathfinder system cannot handle four druids at once. Things go wrong. The druids.
the druids you can't handle the druids it can't it really can't um Bryn go with your scores for us uh right so I was uh I was gonna be the arcane caster and um so I sort of chose to prioritize intelligence, but I also thought about being a sorcerer, so I looked at intelligence and charisma, so I ended up with strength of eight, dexterity of 15.
of 12 intelligence of 16 wisdom of 10 and charisma of 16 so the idea is i'm quite intelligent uh quite personable quite all these things something that people will notice quite quickly is that even though we've got the sort of traditionally squishy characters those are the ones who can't normally take a beating things like arcane casters because they have less hit points and things
That said, I always try to encourage people in Pathfinder to have a con score of at least about 12, just because there are a few nasty sort of traps and poisons out there which will just flat out kill you otherwise with no real chance to save yourself. So if you're a very high dex character, like a rogue, for instance, you can sometimes get, you can normally get away with it. But if you aren't sort of that hard to hit and easy at dodging and with a good reflex.
you're going to want a little bit of a higher con, otherwise bad things can happen. Ben, on to yourself. Yes. So, as I said, playing as a cleric. They run off Constitution and Wisdom. Yeah, they do. So I went high with those. See, I've got 12 Strength, 11 Dexterity, 16 Constitution, 12 Intelligence, 18 Wisdom, and... of basically playing into dwarven strengths who make very good clerics. Yeah, they really do. They really do. And also they always tend to be a bit gruff.
Because the charisma always takes the hit. It does always take the hit. Well, they get money. Yeah, kind of. Lid, yourself? Yeah, so I think pretty classic rogue. Strength, 8. Dex, 17. Con, 12. Int 16, Wiz 14, and Carissa. grand total of eight so i'm very good at seeing and perceiving things but not great at convincing
So this is the grumpy side of the table. And that's the flashy side. Hello! So the thing that's actually worth noting there is, obviously, with ability scores, the higher above 10 you are, basically the better you are than average. And it goes in multiples of two. So you'll be getting a plus one modifier, say, a strength of 12, a plus two modifier at a strength of 14 and so on.
And you'll notice that there's a few eights around the table. Normally people tend to lose charisma just because they like to make themselves good at hitting things. That said, it doesn't mean that your character is awful. It just means that it goes in reverse direction. So that's a minus one eight.
At six, you'd be at minus two. But when you get into sort of the sixes, you kind of want to be steering clear of that because you're having to really bend the game and it doesn't like it. It starts messing with the balance a little bit.
um so after we've sort of got our ability scores it's worth mentioning actually race um a lot of the races in pathfinder have sort of ability score modifiers and as ben was saying uh dwarves take a minus two to charisma get a plus two two do you know off the top of your head
So what that means is that a lot of people will pick the more, it encourages people to pick the more obscure characters, the more obscure races to get a greater variety because normally you're trading a minus two in one thing.
for plus two in two others and there are some really obscure ones which have like a plus five to strength but your charisma is like four because you're a giant and you keep stepping on people like it depends on yes yeah a little bit so going around just quickly what are people's races uh i am human yep I am a halfling. A dwarf. Yep. Humans get extra feats and skill points just to reflect that they're apparently quite good at adapting to situations.
Halflings, off the top of my head, they get a plus two to charisma, don't they? They get plus two to dexterity and plus... strength yeah obviously because they're tiny they're really small i am i am three foot two wow on the bright side we can fit you in a rucksack if we need to so once we've got those core abilities we're heading into discussing basically skill
so as i was saying earlier um outside of combat never mind inside you're gonna be rolling dice to see what you're good at what you're bad at Off the top of my head, these include things like acrobatics, climb, diplomacy, disguise, handle animal. It's quite a broad list. The idea is that it's meant to cover as much...
as much as possible so that your character's individuality will shine through in the game system. I'm not going to get everyone to go sort of crazy because it'll take ages because there's so many, but... Just having a look at your sheet, James, what would you say are the things that you're really good at and is there anything that you're violently terrible at? Sure. I'm quite outdoorsy, so I'm quite good at things like... Handle animal
riding if I take off my massive armour the size of a house. That sort of stuff. It's great for mentioning, actually, at this point. Armor has something called an armor check penalty. So what that is, is it's a penalty that you take for wearing big, heavy armor, which makes you great and hard to hit.
but it doesn't really make sense for someone wearing, like James is saying, a house to be good at dancing in acrobatics. So you'll tend to take a massive penalty whilst you're wearing it, but that'll go away the second you take the armour off. So that's sort of what James is referring to there. um i'm trying to think what else here i i concentrate on oh yes i also have very strong knowledge nobility uh because i was born with a silver spoon jammed down my throat like really quite far like
scooping my lungs out far. So I'm insanely good at that. I'm very bad at stealth for a wide variety of reasons. That would probably be the headlight eagle eyes you've got going on there. Burr! Here! Burgling you! Quietly! Not a crime. I feel like it ought to have Kit's voice, your armour. It ought to be like a Cylon or a Wong, Wong, Wong. Yeah.
Bryn, heading on to yourself. Yeah. What are you good at? What are you bad at? So, basically, I love skill points and I didn't get very many. I mean, I got more than the Cleric, obviously. And that would be because you're taking the hit to intelligence.
amongst other things, right? What? No, I have an intelligence of 16. So why are you so low on score points? I just, because I... lead them all oh that's right because you're not actually that low you just feel low yes I feel low I put them basically in two main areas I put some in talky skills so bluff and diplomacy And I put some in some sort of magic-related skills, so spellcraft and knowledge arcana. Well, yeah, they're really straightforward.
yeah knowledge arcana if anyone's playing anything sort of arcane magic in fact anything magic at all you really do want to have that it's pretty much the you know what magic is If you were going to play someone, I've seen this play before where you're sort of playing someone who's fallen into magic.
and doesn't really know what they're doing you can sort of reflect that by having sort of a low knowledge arcana it makes sense but the way that pathfinder works is it tends to put a lot through that skill that isn't sort of knowledge based it's like to do a spell and know what the correct spell in return is, which some would say you could do instinctively. And to recognise other people's spells and stuff.
It didn't necessarily have to be there, but I was the only person who would take it, and I didn't want to leave the group without it. And it really hamstrings you if you don't have it later on, certainly. I'm also surprisingly good at stealth. Not because I've put any points in it, but just because being a sorcerer, I'm not allowed to wear armour. Well, plus halflings. And I'm a halfling, so I'm tiny and hard to notice. You'd be hiding behind a vase. Essentially, yes. He's hiding behind a vase.
In an amazingly immaculate suit. It's also a vase. Okay, and Ben, heading on to you. What have you got at? To quickly illustrate, Bryn, how many skill points did you get? I don't actually know. It was... Lid got 27, 29, something like that. Oh, you're in so bitter. 60. Basically, because she's a rogue, she gets a lot. She gets a lot. It's around the sort of 14, 17. Also, I'm nearer to pie.
Pies? So I'm fairly certain Ben doesn't have pie skill points. How many skill points do you have? No, okay, I've got three. Okay. I don't even know how you walk around successfully. Actually, with my minus three in acrobatics, nor am I. That's what a peg leg does to you. That's not including my minus six armor check penalty. Wow. She wanted us to just carry you. Is that... Actually, many of my might spells and miracles are to do with not falling in water and dying.
So basically most of your skills could be replicated by just like wearing a life jacket. Yes, I am. That is now the cleric's nickname. Lifejack. Good. Good. That's nice. For anyone who's never played an RPG before, you can spend as long as you want coming up with your name. If you wear a lot of armour, you're always Tin Man.
If you're a dwarf, you're always stumpy. You will get a nickname whether you want one or not. So, pretty much, these roleplayers are very imaginative. And I'm not saying that bitterly. No, so, actually, my knowledge of religion is zero. It's actually one, but it's an unranked skill. Yeah, so I don't know much about religion because I was made religious by the School of Hard Miracles.
Pretty much almost dying and finding religion that way. So unlike, you know, being schooled like these flash spells. No, but I do have a 10 in profession sailor because I was a sailor. For years. For years. I also chose the dwarven subtype saltbeard, which is a dwarf that lives...
No, I'm totally worth mentioning. I'm just chuckling because I love the ones that are named... creatively named but really obvious what they are like uh james's character we'll cover it a bit later has a has a fee called um What was it? Pump and... Pump and Pageantry. Which is the best name ever for what it is. We'll cover it a bit later, but I really love it when you've got those names that are just...
Creative, but just obvious. It really helps. I've also got the classic heel. But yes, I am super bad at acrobatics. Stealth. And usefully for sailors swimming. Well, you know. I think I'm alright. I've got a two, I just have to take my armour off. The peg leg doesn't actually not help. I guess it doesn't make you less buoyant. Which skill would you use if you were taking off your armor in a hurry? I'd use Stepping Stones, which is on my domain. which creates a stone. Look at you with your press.
Yeah. And I also have a heavy wooden shield, which is buoyant. just hang off the bottom of it drowning but near the surface I can forecast this beautiful scene where our two characters are both like in Titanic we're both on his shield one of us hanging off the edge Never let go. Let go! I was totally going to kick you off that thing. Actually, it removes the thing because I can have Endurella.
so I'd just be like it's really cold I don't care it's fine well so Jack's just there in the water watching her freeze on the raft yeah just like should have been a cleric that would have been a very different movie I haven't watched that Okay, Lyd, on to yourself. What are you good at and what are you bad at? I am very good at all things moving quietly.
Let's be honest, you're good at all the things. You have so many ranks. I have a lot of ranks, and I managed to try and write a complicated... backstory to tie that together which works yeah yeah it's good uh so yeah anything acrobatics climb uh Sleight of hand, stealth and survival, I'm good at.
presumably trap findings on there well that's i was gonna group them alex i see all things movement i can do uh all things kind of slightly mechanical as well so uh things like Yeah, trap finding, disabled device, and escape artist. I don't understand where my fly is. Oh, it's because it's dexterity. The idea is that if someone else gives you the ability to fly, like the cleric eventually, if he chooses, can have spells like mass fly, where...
Everyone flies. Amazing. And if he gives it to you because you're just naturally really good with your body. Cool. And you're just like, oh, no, yeah, I get this. It's meant to be that high decks is sort of reflecting that you pick stuff up really quickly as well. I'm just... Sharp. Yeah. And I use daggers as well. So that's me, quick and sharp. Except for when talking to other people. Not so much.
stumbly so i stay silent both to be cool and to hide how uncool i am so well interestingly um we'll cover it a little bit You do have the language sign. So presumably you're incredibly eloquent because that's got to be finger-based, right? You've got an amazing accent in sign language. I am so cool in sign language. And I am filthy in French. So it's just English I struggle with. So it's worth mentioning at this point, normally in the RPG games, you tend to have sort of...
Common is the sort of universal translator language, really. And then the races have their own, whereas I kind of prefer to have a bit more variety. So what I've done in this is that all of those racial languages are still there in addition to... basically the languages of the real world. French is a thing. German's a thing. Swahili, if you want to speak Swahili, is a thing.
don't play a swahili character because i do not know enough about the language to make that work um but yeah so all of you are covering a bunch of them it was just worth mentioning that uh lydia took a sign language which is one that you can do And lip reading. Oh, yeah. So, yeah, I think I've got both. Yeah, it's just worth mentioning because those are options in Pathfinder. One of the reasons I like it is it covers those more obscure things. Yep.
It can be really useful, particularly in rogues, inevitably you're hanging outside some window somewhere looking in. No one can understand me at all. Just quickly checking, you can also speak English, right? Yeah, yeah, although not very well as we've established. It's my first language, but it's also my worst. Cool. So at this point, we're just going to take a brief break and then we're going to come back and start talking about feats. So bear with us one second.
Hi guys, Alex here. Normally we'd put an ad break at this point letting you know about new developments at Rusty Quill, mention sponsors or just recommend other shows that we think you'd enjoy. But today, we just want to take the time to thank you. It takes a lot of time and effort and money to make podcasts like this, and it means a lot to us that you've decided to listen, so thank you.
In fact, you are so awesome that we want to keep making great content for you and introduce you to loads of new shows. But in order to do that, we need your help. The more listeners that we get, the more content we can make. It's as simple as that. And the best way that we can get listeners is by word of mouth.
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We're looking forward to making loads more content for you in the future, and we want to share it with everyone that you care about. So thanks again for getting involved, and we hope we get to meet you, your friends, and all your lizards real soon. Well, that's everything for now. So sit back, relax, and let's get back to the show. And welcome back. So now we're going to be discussing feet.
I have two. They're on my legs. You have one. I have extra feet. This is a meta podcast, James. A meta podcast. So by feet, of course, what we're meaning is sort of... Special abilities, almost. I mean, a lot of people reference anime for this. You know, it's your Kamehameha, if you know that as a reference. It's your super special, mega awesome attack. Probably more spell-like ability, actually. What I'm getting at is that it...
It's a sort of thing that makes you you. It's that skill that your character figured out at like age 12. Hey, if I spin this way, I can kick extra hard. It's just it's just a technique or an affinity that your character in their past sort of developed. They can be taught as well. Obviously, if you have a tutor, they'll teach you the feats that they knew. And they're normally giving sort of a bit more pronounced.
bonuses to things so starting with let's go the other way around starting with you Lydia right what feats did you have well you might have remembered from two minutes ago talking about stats that I am Very good at moving and sneaking and bending, but not very strong. So I took feats that kind of helped with that. My two main ones are Dirty Fighter. essentially means uh the practical upshot is plus one when flanking uh and it kind I'm always trying to get around you and get an...
Is that a feat or is that a trait? Do you want us to talk about both? It's minor. The difference in Pathfinder is that traits tend to be very... explicitly backstory related and Pathfinder really encourages you to only pick traits that are relevant. So I think you have a couple like the crowd based. These are my only two. So like crowd. Crowd Dodger and Dirty Fighter are my traits. What's a feat then? The main difference is that you only get traits
At the very beginning. And you get feats as you level up. Right, so these are traits. And feats tend to be bigger. Like, traits tend to be quite small bonuses and feats. at least at higher levels, become much bigger by this. I don't think I have any feats. That's a feat. Yeah, you will. Basically, the idea... And weapon finesse is a feat.
See, the idea behind it is, like Rin's saying, that you take the traits at the start. Mechanically, actually, it makes your character more individual at lower levels. because those feats are kind of a big deal every time you level up and you can't give a starting character too many because it really breaks the game. So the way they got round that is, here you get like a plus one, like just one rank in swimming.
But that's a really nice way to basically in a party of everyone being a bit naff, suddenly you're the swimmer, even though it's only a plus one. It just helps individuate your character a bit. So what were the two feats that you had? Sorry, yeah, so my...
I've got two weapon fighting, which means that I can go crazy with those daggers without much of a penalty. And I've got weapon fin... which is particularly good when you have very little strength and very high depth because I get to swap those two.
The two-weapon fighting one is that anyone can two-weapon fight in Pathfinder. You've got the hands for it. But they're rubbish. Yeah, you take lots and lots of penalties. So you're looking at like a minus four... Minus dogs and minus six. Minus six and minus ten. Yeah, minus four on your primary hand.
Good grief. So obviously no one ever chooses to go that route unless they're putting the feats in. And the two-weapon fighting basically just minimises that till... you're not really taking a penalty at all yeah well my weapons are light which minus is two from the penalties and then with two weapon fighting it takes them down to minus four each so it's minus four then minus minus two Yes. On both hands. Yeah. Which is really useful.
minus a bit but the catch with that is is that if you really want to sort of up this you're going to have to dedicate a lot of the feats that you pick as you level up to just getting that two weapon fighting is that's what that's the trade-off with it is that you get literally twice as much damage out but you do have to sort of go i really wanted to be able to like climb faster but i'll just have to put more into those two weapon fighting i've kind of got climbing covered
for a while yeah and then the um the weapon finesse one specifically trades strength when you're calculating attack for dexterity and obviously because you've got such a high dexterity being a rogue it makes sense to have high decks which makes you harder to hit but it makes it quite efficient because you're also high-dex two-hit. The trade-off being that you'll actually do a little bit less damage, but that's why you have the two-weapon fighting. Yep. So essentially, I don't...
I don't take anyone on face forward. It's more a kind of wiggling and stabbing and flipping and flicking. Jumping down from on high and popping up from below. You're very much an unpleasant surprise. Yes, that's me. You're someone's bad day. I'm someone's bad, bad day. Okay, Ben, heading on to yourself? You were correct, I have one. Because not being a human, I don't get the extra adaptable thing. So I have Iron Will. Plus two to my Will's sake.
I am very stubborn. And if anyone tries to control my mind or generally stop me from doing things... I'm better at not doing that. I do have about a billion special abilities. So I guess I'll quickly talk about those because that's kind of what clerics have.
sure spin through I worship Poseidon which will make sense in setting I'll leave that for a bit later but my domains are water and specifically iron hence the whole sailor thing which means that as I mentioned you get stepping stones so I can create a floating disc per four cleric levels and they stick around for a minute which is very good for stuff
my death. And I also have an icicle, which is basically I can just fire icicles at people and do some damage. Are you the ice king from Adventure... Oh, oh, if I could do his voice, I would. so I won't but if we ever find a blue robe and a cursed crown I'm going down that route That's it, fans. If you want to cosplay... I'll get my own butler and he'll be called Gunther and it'll be great. Okay, and traits, actually, while we've got you here? Um...
Yes, so I get a lot for being a dwarf and some more for being a saltbeard. So I get a plus two save versus poison. Plus four combat manoeuvre defence versus bull rush and trip because I'm very stocky. Just to jump in. Bullrush being where someone is physically sort of trying to push your character, say, over a cliff or out of the way or something. Rugby tackle kind of thing. Yeah. And Trip being, you know.
tripping someone up so that they end up prone on the floor which has a whole mess of rules associated to it which you're gonna have to learn mr peg leg Plus to an appraise to all treasure found in or underwater, which is a salt beard. Plus to a perception of stone-based works and traps and hidden doors and stuff. That's the dwarf.
Dark vision, 60 foot, that's the dwarf. Plus two to see survival. To spell out as well, dark vision being that you can literally see in pitch black. It's worth noting in Pathfinder there's two types. There's low light vision. And then there's dark vision. Low light vision is sort of like...
You know, if there was a candlelight that would light, you know, 50 foot and then in a human, you're like, I think there's something out there. Like an elf will get low light vision. That means they can see like 100 foot. I mean, I'm plucking these figures out of the air.
It basically means you're really good when there's just a tiny amount of light. Whereas dark vision is that you can only see in black and white. That's actually part of it is it's monochrome, but like pitch black, it's like wearing like infrared goggles or something like that.
She's quite useful. And the last thing, plus two to T-survival, plus one to attack, and plus two to dodge against aquatic and water types. Again, swordbeards. Almost like you've got a watery backstory. I do have a watery backstory. It's very watery. Okay. On to yourself, Bryn. So I get a bunch of bonuses for being a halfling. Halflings are lucky. They're fearless.
They're sure-footed and they have keen sensors. And basically that improves my saving throws and a couple of skills, which may or may not. The feat I chose for my character was combat casting, which is a very boring one. It's time and essential. Yeah, it's one of those things that's hard to function without, basically. I can't really fight. And as we've already established, I'm quite squishy. But if someone attacks me while I'm trying to cast a spell, it goes wrong. But combat casting helps me.
It doesn't go wrong quite so often. It's one of those feats, it's not flashy, it doesn't have a big title or anything, but what it comes down to is... like in the rules of the game, it's really, really useful. And it's fine to start without it. And then once you do, you really, really quickly realise why you should have taken it in the first place. By much more exciting. is my class feature so sorcerers are not like wizards they don't get that magical power from studying and learning
memorising stuff. They get it spontaneously because of something weird in their ancestry. Because magic! Because magic. And so a sorceress gets to choose a bloodline. I've chosen the draconic bloodline. So it turns out that one of my ancestors was a dragon. Which he deliberately picked because, like, the backstory is all of it. Like, the world history, sorry, is all available on the website rustyquill.com. But it... Yeah, it's a big decision from Bryn. At what point?
You know, there's lots of options. It's not necessarily the most powerful one. In fact, it's certainly not the most powerful one. If you can build a character who's eventually going to turn into a dragon, why wouldn't you do that? What possible reason could you have? So hopefully, you know, if we depend on how long we play this campaign and play these characters, my character will eventually turn into a dragon.
which I'm quite excited about. Always wanting to be a dragon. Yes. No one ever wants to grow up and be a dungeon. They always want to grow up and be a dragon. The one ability I have so far from having draconic ancestry... is that I can spontaneously grow claws. I have decided my character doesn't yet know this. Wicked. We'll see if he finds out at any point. Oh, I'm all over that. Okay.
I took two reasonably dull traits as well, which were... influence and rich parents so i've written a backstory about quite a wealthy influential family based in egypt uh i think category backstories are going up on the website at some point yeah yeah um what we've got is we've got sort of abridged versions because obviously we don't want um
or we don't want you audience to know every single thing about the character because then there's no such thing as a reveal which would be rubbish storytelling Indeed. So, yeah, so... Again, not particularly exciting, but I like creating characters who have lots of potential connections and lots of potential story hooks. And so there's a big family and lots of things. Well, I mean, we'll go into the backstory, like we'll round off talking about how you generate backstory and things, but yeah.
I'm a big believer that the mechanics of your character really has to reflect that backstory, otherwise you tend to end up just playing the numbers. which is why with James, who you haven't really done RPGs before, we were really making sure that when building your character, we had a lot of people sort of saying, trust me, you want to sort of...
You want to have your numbers reflecting this part of your personality and so on, because otherwise you can end up kind of disjointed and it can come across a bit weird. Finishing with you, traits and feats. Speaking of influential families. Oh, yeah. Yeah, so I might need a bit of help just disentangling what's a feat and what's a trait here. But yeah, so in terms of what I think of the feats bit.
I have exotic weapon proficiency bastard sword. And why did you pick that? Because it's big and flashy. Biggest and flashiest one. Here we go. I want the best sword. What can I do? Yep. Best one. Biggest sword. Yeah, so that's it. So the character is all about being big and flashy and as impressive as possible because he's on the hunt for glory. Yeah, so the Bastard Sword. And in my mind's eye, I've got this sort of, you know, Rocky style montage. pay someone to make him better at...
So your Rocky Star montage is you just paying by card and this guy's just selling you stuff. I say montage, literally it's two bars long. Yeah, that's it. Yeah, that's it. yeah so I've got a couple yeah the other warrior-y fighter-y one I have is power attack which you have to tell me what the exact mechanics of that are but basically isn't it
It's slightly harder to hit a thing, but when you hit it, it's harder. It's really directly, it's just trading attack bonus for damage. So the idea is that you see something, you're like, he's really big.
I don't really need to aim. I just have to vaguely wave my sword in his direction and I'm going to hit him. Then you want to be doing that power attack. It's really useful against like big heffing great monsters which have huge like penalties to their dodge because they're just big heffing great monster-y things. Or building.
Buildings? Or trees. See, Ben's played power attack before. I'd like to think that I'm the sort of character that would power up a power attack, try and hit a building and miss. In my mind's eye, in the montage, he practices that by cutting a cow in half.
blow pretty impressive lovely it wasn't the first blow was it it was a single blow but it was the third try yes and the third feat I have is noble scion the fact that i'm from uh very very blue blood uh and i've plus two to knowledge and ability from that i think generally speaking i was trying to pick things that were more
the character rather than like, I'd like some numbers, please. Yeah, I mean, a lot of people who've played this game before and hear that would go, oh, he's not very optimised. Yeah, it's not something that I'm ever going to encourage people to do. I'd far rather you had a lot of flavour. I'm optimised for having fun, yeah? How about trade? Traits, yeah. So I have rich parents. Shocker. I had rich parents. They're dead now. And that's why I'm now rich.
or was until I spent all of my money on extremely flashy arbor there's no real bonuses and my favourite Say again? And what's my favourite drink? Oh, yes. Pop and pageantry, which means I get plus one on rolls for acrobatic. diplomacy, handle animal, intimidate. twice as long doing the thing. So it's the idea of, you know, you're riding to get away from the monsters and everyone's, you know, 10 minutes ahead of you going, come on, come on.
and you're just dressaging along. I'm going half the speed but I'm getting away better. That's it. Not sure how that's going to work. I love it. I love that you've managed to basically make poshness like a bonus. It's brilliant. I love it. so I will literally be able to roll the dice and check my privilege so that'll be good so yes I just webbed things that you know would fit with the character in that one and that one sounds like it would be fun to play so I'll give that a go
failed the dice roll, which is quite likely I will at least have fun describing how I failed. And look good doing it. Oh yeah. Yep, yep. It's all about the elegant dismount. Yeah, so all of those things about Matching your backstory, which in James's case had come out as a wonderful, glorious show of shimmers and gold. In my case, Kamau's crowd dodger and dirty fighter. So I can slip around people and dodge blows.
And Dirty Fighter means that I get plus one coming around from the back. So once I've ducked under your fist, I will stab you in the gut. with my character story. See, the thing I find really fun from a game mastering perspective is that James goes to all this effort to really, really pick all of the sort of feats and the traits that reflect his bombastic character who makes unwise decisions, which of course requires him to make...
unwise decisions and then we've got uh Lydia who by making perfectly like legitimate trait choices for you know this really reflects my backstory oh is also really useful in the game yeah because I am not strong and so being able to flip Oh no, that was something else. Yeah. So, yeah, up in my acrobatics and sliding behind people. Oh, yeah. It's kind of what I do. Also, trap finding and sneak...
Oh, it's worth actually describing sneak attack at this point. All right, sneak attack means plus 1d6 to damage flanking. And if you're listening along at home, listeners, you'll remember that I'm trying, I'm trying. I also get plus one attack when flanking from Dirty Fighters, so I will not be coming at you. So to spell out flanking just a little bit more for people who've never played at all, flanking is the idea that if there is, say, two people facing an enemy from opposite sides,
And the idea is that the person in the middle doesn't know who to defend against. And that should be reflected in a bonus. So that's normally in a bonus to actually hit the person. But rogues are the class where they actually get a bonus to do damage as well because they're banking on that. They're the ones who are never going to sort of pick a straight fight with you.
they're going to wait until Bertie James' character wades in going everybody look at me at which point she's going around behind everyone sort of shanking them from behind those bonuses also apply if you catch an enemy by surprise There's a thing in Pathfinder called Flatfooted, which is that idea is that if you get the drop on them for a change. And I will literally drop on them because you should see my climbing skills. Then, yeah, you get to basically get those bonuses as well.
Just running through quickly, actually, just worth mentioning, hit points. These are determined by your constitution stats. Normally Pathfinder suggests that you roll for these. I tend to discourage this as a game master because you can end up having a fighter who just threw bad luck. is basically is has a glass jaw and it really really messes the the game's mechanic up especially at higher levels because yes it averages out but
those bad rolls can really break your character. So what I've done is I deliberately... Well, at first level, you get the maximum available anyway. True, very true. But we're going to use a fixed value. sure so just running through quickly at first level this is at the max but from then on we'll be um we'll be taking a percentage of the max which i believe i set at um off the top of my head it was about 75 75
Yeah, because I find that slightly ekes in your favour with regards to... It's a house rule I've used for a number of years, and it's always worked really well. Yeah, and there's some other versions where you roll like six dice and pick the best one, but ultimately you're just, you're kind of creating... problems that you don't need. So just running around quickly, how many hit points do you have, James? 13. Brent? 7. 11. 10.
Okay, cool. So actually, for a level one party, you've actually got quite a decent amount of hit points. No, apart from Brick. well Bryn doesn't need hit points because he can smile his problems away he's got happy points okay heading into now sort of the last bits before we start getting into backstory just equipment
Going around quickly. Obviously, James, we've already covered. Bastard sword. Bastard sword. Huge armour. Huge armour. Oh, also, I have a rapier for when I need to stab somebody at a formula. Genuinely true. So notice that he takes the feet of rich parents, which is meant to give you, like, okay, I can get all of this brilliant equipment, which will give me an early boost. Or, by one piece of equipment I don't need that's huge and impressive, I also have heavy steel shield adventuring kit.
Missed clothing. Adventuring kit being basically rope. torches, camping equipment, things like that. It's the stuff that inevitably you're going to end up wanting in the wilderness. And, you know, God bless Pathfinder. They did just say, look, there's an adventuring kit. Just buy the kit. It's got the things you want. Oh, you need a bigger kit? Get the bigger adventuring kit. Like, they just lumped it together because there's so many lists of equipment.
Ryn, answer your equipment quickly. So my character has in fact bought a light crossbow. and some daggers and some bolts for the crossbow, none of which he can use very well, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. I also have an adventuring kit and lots of clothing. important to look good it is important to look good whilst you're doing stuff can i can i check a thing quickly because i've spotted that your clothing bring weighs uh 10 pounds
Mine weighs 25. I realise I'm bigger than you, but am I like wearing a marquee with a spare marquee in my bag? Well, it's about having multiple sets. Oh, all right. Fair enough. So I've got loads of different sets. Yes, as do I. I've never known anyone have as many ruffs as your character. He's got ruffs for his arms, his thighs. Arm ruffs, leg ruffs, swimming ruffs. Oh yeah, his swimming ruffs. Remember I am literally half the size.
Probably proportionately less if you think about it in terms of volume. Let's be honest, Bryn is the equivalent. I could work that out if you really want. Hammond is what, the equivalent of Bertie's leg? Should we say? It makes sense. Okay, Ben, answer yourself. I have a trident. Yes. Because it is my god's favoured weapon. Worth mentioning at this point. I feel like we probably should. I won't go into it a bit more, but in this game setting, we're...
Pathfinder likes using a pantheon rather than like a single deity or anything like that. So for various reasons, I've gone with the Greek pantheon, which is obviously why Mr. Trident over here has a trident. And it's because it's the weapon of his chosen deity. Find a picture of Poseidon without a trident. They don't homework. Hence why his holy symbol is the Driftwood Dolphin. Yep, yep. Scout mail, heavy wooden shield for the aforementioned floating. Uh-huh.
I also have basically an adventuring kit. I've also got a Cold Lantern, which... which is a lantern. I may have misnamed that. Wow. Basically, there's two types of lantern that are effectively the same price. The dangerous one and the not dangerous one. Yeah, there's one which is a candle covered in glass and there's one which is a candle covered in steel grill. And anyone who knows their mining history...
will know that doing so means it can't set off flammable gas. It's a real thing because it dissipates the heat. But yeah, in Pathfinder, it actually has a small difference. So if it's the same cost, why wouldn't you get it? And I'm a minor. Well, it was a minor. Yeah. Yeah, and also, based on an edition, Compass and a Signal Whistle, because they're just very...
Okay, so Lydia, how about yourself? What equipment are you sporting? I've got leather armour, which is my clothing, basically. I like the leather. Underneath my super cool leather jacket, I have spring-loaded wrist... oh yeah daggers and then trying to pull the daggers back because they kind of only work one way that was on me you weren't aware of them and they're my favourite thing because they allow you to draw as a swift action but
so long to put them away to winch them back particularly because I'm not very strong so I can imagine I'm there kind of struggling afterwards it's alright Papa Bertie can come over and do your issues I don't think I would come here stealthy one I don't think my character would enjoy that at all Also, within my cool leather clothes are small pockets in which you will find thieves tools and a disguise kit and playing cards.
ton of daggers oh yeah i think i've only got four right now but i'll be looking to increase that i mean rogues in general out of everyone i'd say rogues tend to end up being quite the most diverse with equipment so yeah so with um with sort of the fighters and even a sort of cleric because he's sort of filling a sort of tanky role and they tend to put a lot of money into sort of magic armor and a magic sword and stuff and they just sort of bump those up.
Whereas with the rogue, it's like, ah, I used my batch utility belt, my anti-carousel spray and all kinds of nonsense. When we're fighting a fairground. Yeah, exactly. Honestly, with the rogue, it's going to be worth you. I think I'd do quite well fighting a fairground. I mean, I've got... unlock the back door, wrench it all open, disguise myself as a carny and take off. Have you never seen the Adam West Batman movie?
Where he has anti-shark spray. Oh, yes! That's the one where he comes as a joker to a surfer contest. It's apparently been in his utility belt the entire series. Oh, yeah. Hasn't needed it. How big is this guy's utility belt? staggering all right there's something called handy have a sack you'll learn it's it's one of those um it's it's a bottomless bag basically oh like Santa's sack yes Santa well Santa has a bag of holding which is a bigger I have a sack
See, you're learning, Jay. I feel like I'm gaining a lot. Okay, so running around for the very last of the mechanics, it's there are a few values that are derived from all of the stuff we built, so you don't have to sort of choose it. It is just automatically generated by all of the scores. So it's stuff like saving throws, which are just, you know, how good you are at saving against, say, a poison or a dodge, things like that. So what, for instance, James, what are yours?
That is a good question. Oh, there we go. So my fortitude save is... That would be to protect against poisons, the cold, things like that. Eating too many pies. Yep. My reflex save is one. Does what it says on the tin. If someone's throwing things at you, you are more likely to duck or dodge out of the way of a trap.
And my will save is minus one because I'm easily distracted by people jingling their keys on the other side of the room. So will is a bit of a weird one because it reflects... two things in pathfinder which is um the ability for people to persuade you and manipulate you and things like that a little bit um it's mostly just to do with magic so there is a bit of a counterintuitive thing where It makes sometimes will can make you easier to hit with a big fiery ball.
Despite the fact that you'd think you'd be able to dodge it, I'm not talking specifically Fireball, but it's just there are some spells where you'd think it would be based off a dodge and actually it's will save. Mostly, though, it tends to be things like mind control and things like that.
There's very little mind to control. Well, that's the thing. I'm starting to think it ought to be a plus. So, Bryn, how about yourself? What are your saving throws? A fortitude of two, a reflex of three, and a will. Fortitude of five. Reflex of zero. And a will of eight. Yeah, so that's the benefit for the clerics. Sometimes people kind of, you know, knock on clerics like, they're like a fighter and not a god or a magician and not as good.
But the trade-off is, yeah, you get massive, enormous saves, particularly the will save is huge. That is also with my feet, but I would have a six anyway. Yeah, exactly. You're tearing away already. Annlin? My fortitude is a feeble one, so please don't poison me. My reflex is a five, so yeah, feel free to throw stuff at me. And my will is two.
really nondescript so where do we fall though if i'm throwing poison at you i think that's fine because if i dodge it if i dodge it i'm fine it's uh and you know if you put it in my food i'll probably perceive it I've got a lot of those guys. I think that's a pie. Tasty, tasty poison. Don't, any kind of cloud of poison that I can't avoid, that'd be bad. Yeah, okay. Can't dodge that. Stop giving Alex tips. Cloud of poison, yeah, yeah, I get what you mean.
another one that's derived very quickly initiative which is how quick off the mark you are because this is a turn-based game for combat we'll discuss this in episode one we're actually doing some combat But that determines sort of your turn order. So normally, for instance, Lydia would have a very high initiative because it's reflecting that she's so quick off the mark. And it's a big bonus for rogues. It's not going first. It's three. So yours is three, for instance.
James is... Mine is one, which I assume is the first, and therefore the best. Yes. Bryn, how about yourself? Two. And Ben? Zero. Yeah. and that's for the kind of party makeup we have that's a totally standard setup there are a few feats which will boost them and things like that yeah no one's no one's sort of biased the system by having eight at first level which you occasionally get where one person has eight and everyone else has like one and two yeah which we're actually all quite close
So there's a lot of optimization tactics where some people will deliberately get the biggest initiative that they can and also the biggest one-hit wonder spell that they can. So it's just like you encounter 60 goblins, boom, you encounter four goblins. You see it happen a lot. And attack values, just briefly, this will depend on your base attack bonus, which is just determined by, which is, one sec, it's just that one.
So that's your attack bonus with that weapon. And your base attack bonus is there. So your base attack bonus is determined by your class. It is just a fixed number. And then your attack bonus with a weapon will be factoring in that weapon, which will tell you your strength, or in Lydia's case, because of weapon finesse or dexterity. and also the base attack bonus, sort of all of that lumped together. So yours would be with the weapon.
Four. With the Bastard Sword, yeah? Yeah, with the Bastard Sword. And with the Rapier, it's also four. And your base attack is... One. Yeah. Bryn? So my base attack is zero. And it's zero with... a dagger or my claws or whatever as well um because i'm basically a bit rubbish um it is three with a crossbow i'm not terrible with a crossbow um but i will mostly be doing spells yeah
Which are reflected. Yeah, they work completely differently, which is great. And yourself, Ben? Yeah, mine I think is two, because my base stat bonus is zero. I've got a strength of one, and the Trident and Light Mace are both... Tap bonusy one. Off the top of my head, I'm not sure if that's correct. We'll chase that up. That's fine. I've actually written one on my sheet and then I got confused. the website earlier. So actually I think my tap bonus is actually one win.
Okay, we'll chase it up and we'll figure it out. Yeah, my base attack is zero. And then when I get my weapons out, because I can flip them with dexterity, I get a one. Yeah, calculating Lyd's attack bonus was a very complex process. Because there's the penalties from using two weapons, but there's the bonuses from the two-weapon fighting, and then the negative from strength. And it's going to be even more complex in practice, because I will get...
There's no point in me attacking someone if I don't have a sneak attack or flanking bone. everything is multipliers of small numbers but what i'd say though is this a lot of this will come down to style of gm as well so i'm a big fan of sort of environmental things so as a rogue i'd like i i used to have a like a for playing Rose. I really liked them as a thing. I never would have guessed. I know, right?
Spring-loaded Rischings. The listeners can't see this, but Alex is in a big black cloak. He's got weapons all over him. He's got grey face paint on. Oh yeah, eliminating the clanking. His eyes are glowing red. His eyes are glowing red. You can hear that lisp. That's the teeth, the vampiric teeth.
oh you guys so flattering yeah but um yeah so talking about the environmental thing it's worth noting that like for rogues i'm a big fan of the environmental stuff but all of you can take advantage if there's a big load of rocks on a mountainside give them a push they will fall down on people if there's a chandelier why don't you cut that rope and drop it on some suckers like exactly is with the row
Rogue tends to work quite well if you have a GM who's willing to allow that kind of lateral thinking. If you have someone who's just saying, no, you will roll the dice and you will match the numbers and you are in a featureless room, then, yeah, it starts to get a bit bland. Also, on that note, I really want to see better. This is heroic. I'm quite heavy. Minus eight modifier. I accidentally ate it. And wearing it as a necklace. Just to cover the last thing.
some people will get annoyed that we're breezing past but it's such a huge topic we'll probably have to do a podcast a podcast a metacast just to cover that is spells it's worth noting at this point that Ben's Cleric gets access to a whole load of spells, like a massive amount, and he has to pick every day which ones he's preparing.
So there's not much point going over it at this point. It's worth noting, though, that he has a couple that he'll always have to prepare because they're his domains. I've got some favoured spells as well. The domain spells then are Obscuring Mist and Air Bubbles.
Sure. And normally you'll get people will pick out the ones that they think are best or suit their character most. But honestly, there's so many that we just can't go into it now. Bryn's character is a little bit different. He's what's called a spontaneous caster. So that means that rather than picking from a heffing great huge spell list.
every single day. He gets them much, much smaller, but he can use them as many times as his body will allow him to. I currently know six spells. So my zero... spells my cantrips and i can cast any of these as many times per day as i like i've taken acid splash uh message detect magic meditation, which is a word I often think.
Prestidigitation is quite a useful one, though. Yeah, Prestidigitation! The reason I know that is because I couldn't say it and then took it because it was my favourite spell of all of them. despite the fact that it's the weakest and used it all the time because all it does is allows you to do flashy magic that has no mechanical value to the game whatsoever. Want to dye your hair? Your hair is dyed. Want to have one extra like rough for five minutes?
done but it doesn't actually do it doesn't do anything even vaguely useful it specifically says if this would give you like a real mechanical advantage no I will mostly be calling it prestidigital blah so just to warn you it's just going to be abracadabra in it We'll see. Isn't it just your portable suit?
yes essentially it's going to keep me looking good oh yeah yeah exactly like it's just it's just that one it's everyone who plays a magic player always wants to occasionally just go okay now i do something flashy does it do anything no no i just want to be flashy
Press the digitation. I mostly use it to light women's cigarettes in bars using just my thumb. See, as long as they don't fall madly in love with you, I'd call that a mechanical benefit. But, you know, you'll be good. They still have an increased risk of cancer. I can't take that away with the breast digitization.
No, I suppose you can't. Thanks for that. It's important that this carries a strong moral message. My first level spells are Charm Person and Magic Missile. And I can cast four first level spells. day. I've taken just quite a broad range of stuff that does different things. I like being...
And heading into just the very last bit, we're not going to go into everyone's backstories here as well because it will take ages because that's kind of the point of backstories. They're meant to be big and complete.
But just generally speaking, when you're playing a game, especially for the first time, your game master, your GM, will normally give you a brief... um sort of on the story world what kind of campaign it's going to be are you going to be spending all of your time in a dungeon are you going to be traveling between planets whatever um and obviously you don't want to be writing things and having ideas before he's given you that or she's given you that because you can end up with something very
out of place and then you're trying to bend it to fit and it just doesn't work like having a salt beer The desert campaign. I would have loved to have made that work. He grew up on the only lake that's like 50 metres wide. can we go back to the Oasis guys why no reason just want to use some of my bonuses
So obviously, yeah, you want things that are appropriate. And that ties into what we were saying earlier is you all want to gel. You don't want to be sort of treading on each other's toes. And if every single person is playing like a water-based character, you better hope it's a water-based campaign and you'd better have different... sort of water-based skills otherwise you're all just gonna get annoying one another um also it's always worth sort of discussing stuff
with your game master. Don't just make it in a bubble. Don't get your sort of brief and go, wicked, I'm going to go away. Okay, cool. So there's a secret society that exists in this place. That place doesn't exist. It does now. And yeah, you've got to have that back and forth, if only because...
Everyone always thinks it's so that the GM can get their hooks in you and give... plot elements that they can like sabotage you with later honestly it's to stop you sabotaging yourselves most of the time if you're going to insist on picking a character who's you know morbidly afraid of water and the first thing that happens in the first session is you're teleported into the middle of the ocean again
it's going to have shot you in the foot. And if you'd have just had that conversation, the GM would have steered you away from that. Although it sounds hilarious. Is this a good time to mention that my character is deathly afraid of water? This thing that's making me sad is all of these might be better than the campaign you're about to play.
But there is one thing that I think is really important as well, which a lot of people kind of gloss over, which is you want to make sure that everyone at the table, and of course with sort of having to factor listeners like yourselves into this, is... Is everyone at the table okay with what you're playing?
And honestly, you can get into real trouble. Like some people, just because of their upbringing, will maybe pick a character that they don't realize could be offensive and things like that. And there's no maliciousness to it, but it can cause offense. So I always try and make sure that like...
Everyone's happy and I expect everyone to tell me if they're not. And that's the thing is that it's an important thing. It's a really important part of it is that it's a social game and it is a game. You know, it's not worth like losing friendships because someone decided to pick a... a slightly racy character that everyone else hated um and i think that's really really important if there's one thing that people took away it'd be
That's the thing that people tend to skip. And I think arguably it's the thing that could matter most because it's the difference between your group actually playing and having a big fight, not in the fun gamey way and then sort of abandoning. Cool. So that's kind of us wrapped up for the Metacast. Is there anything that anyone wants to add? Anything else? Anything that we think we'd miss?
I agree. I also like trains. Trains are pretty good. Lydia, trains, yes or no? I've rarely seen a train not having left London. Are we talking about the character or me? You, you specifically. Oh, me. I use a lot of trains. I like them. so lydia's pro trip brim closing statements pro or con trains Eh. So that's the end of the train podcast. No, sorry. Sorry. No. But yeah, that is the end of our sort of episode zero. So thanks for listening. I hope you enjoyed it.
And from me and everyone else here at the table, bye. Bye. Rusty Quill Gaming is a podcast distributed by RustyQuill.com and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial International License. Today's episode was recorded and produced by Alexander J. Newell. To comment on episodes, make donations, and view links, images, videos, and show notes, visit rustyquill.com. Rate and review us on iTunes. Visit us on Facebook.
Tweet us on Twitter at TheRustyQuill or email us at mail at rustyquill.com. Thanks for listening. There will be theme tunes and all that, but obviously... And now I need to edit that. Thank you so much. Right. And you all get to laugh at my presenting voice. You ready? It's pretty much my voice. Okay, welcome to... Made it so far. Made it so far. At least we've already made stuff for the outtakes. I hate you guys. Outtakes!
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