Saturday, December 31, 2016

The Blob, Take #1 (Alyisa Ebonblade)

Okay.. take one. Here she is. Alyisa Ebonblade (pronounced Ale-yisa). She is another Arkenstar native gone to the Pathfinder Society like her sister, Kyrie (my #1 PFS character) but was too young for Torch to recruit at the time; Kyrie was 14 but she was only 4 at the time. So the 12 years that Kyrie worked as first an apprentice and then an actual Pathfinder, she was with foster parents in Arkenstar.


Finally she was old enough to travel and work with her sister in Absalon at her sister's gunshop. There she learned the secrets of gunsmithing and how to shoot a musket but as she worked with the society she took a different path for her skills than her older sister, whose mastery of guns and alchemy made her infamous as much as her temper and rage at being betrayed by Torch, and she took up the arts of magic to supplement her skill with the musket.




Alyisa Ebonblade

Female human (Varisian) gunslinger (musket master) 1/wizard 4 (Pathfinder RPG Ultimate Combat 9, 50)

NG Medium humanoid (human)

Init +4; Senses Perception +10

--------------------

Defense

--------------------

AC 17, touch 12, flat-footed 15 (+5 armor, +2 Dex)

hp 31 (5 HD; 4d6+1d10+5)

Fort +4, Ref +5, Will +6

--------------------

Offense

--------------------

Speed 30 ft.

Melee longsword +3 (1d8/19-20)

Ranged +2 musket +8 (1d12+2/×4)

Special Attacks deeds (deadeye, quick clear, steady aim), grit (2)

Wizard Spells Prepared (CL 4th; concentration +10)

2nd—darkvision, false life, sense vitals, sense vitals

1st—abundant ammunition[UC] (2), heightened awareness[ACG], true strike, true strike

0 (at will)—detect magic, mending, prestidigitation, read magic

Opposition Schools Enchantment, Illusion

--------------------

Statistics

--------------------

Str 11, Dex 14, Con 12, Int 18, Wis 14, Cha 10

Base Atk +3; CMB +3; CMD 15

Feats Arcane Armor Training, Gunsmithing[UC], Point-Blank Shot, Precise Shot, Rapid Reload, Spell Focus (evocation), Weapon Focus (musket)

Traits black powder interjection, focused mind

Skills Acrobatics +8, Climb +4, Craft (alchemy) +8, Craft (firearms) +8, Knowledge (arcana) +12, Knowledge (dungeoneering) +8, Knowledge (engineering) +8, Knowledge (geography) +8, Knowledge (history) +8, Knowledge (local) +8, Knowledge (nature) +8, Knowledge (nobility) +8, Knowledge (planes) +8, Knowledge (religion) +8, Linguistics +12, Perception +10, Spellcraft +12, Survival +8, Swim +6

Languages Aquan, Auran, Common, Dwarven, Ignan, Kelish, Orc, Osiriani, Polyglot, Terran, Varisian

SQ arcane bond (+2 musket), forewarned, gunsmith, prescience (7/day)

Other Gear +1 darkleaf cloth lamellar (leather) armor[UC], +2 musket[UC], black powder[UC] (30), bullet[UC] (30), longsword, paper cartridge[UC] (10), endless bandolier[UE], handy haversack, bedroll, belt pouch, flint and steel, gunsmith's kit[UC], hemp rope (50 ft.), mess kit[UE], pot, powder horn[UC], spellbook, torch (10), trail rations (5), waterskin, 1,136 gp

--------------------

Special Abilities

--------------------

Arcane Armor Training Swift action: -10% arcane spell failure due to armor.

Arcane Bond (+2 musket) (1/day) (Sp) Use object to cast any spell in your spellbook. Without it, Concentration required to cast spells (DC20 + spell level).

Deeds Use Grit to perform special abilities with your firearms.

Enchantment You must spend 2 slots to cast spells from the Enchantment school.

Foresight Associated School: Divination

Forewarned 2 (Su) Can always act in surprise rounds.

Grit (Ex) Gain a pool of points that are spent to fuel deeds, regained on firearm crit/killing blow.

Gunsmith At 1st level, a gunslinger gains one of the following firearms of her choice: blunderbuss, musket, or pistol. Her starting weapon is battered, and only she knows how to use it properly. All other creatures treat her gun as if it had the broken condit

Gunsmithing You can use a gunsmithing kit to craft/repair firearms and ammo.

Illusion You must spend 2 slots to cast spells from the Illusion school.

Point-Blank Shot +1 to attack and damage rolls with ranged weapons at up to 30 feet.

Precise Shot You don't get -4 to hit when shooting or throwing into melee.

Prescience (7/day) (Su) Roll a d20 at the beginning of the round, and use that result as the result of any other d20 roll before the next turn.

Rapid Reload (Musket) You can reload fast with one type of Crossbow or Firearm.

Spell Focus (Evocation) Spells from one school of magic have +1 to their save DC.



Tactics: At this point she is mostly Wizard with a bit more 'Omph due to her arcane armor training, firearms and wide variety of martial weapons she has access to. The combination of a good wisdom and four levels of wizard evens out the typical gunslinger weak will save; add in her Prescience school talents and you got a few useful moments of 'Nope that wasn't a misfire' or 'I'll swap this Nat 20 for this 3... so now I'll roll to confirm the crit..'. A plus +2 to init due to wizard class levels means just a bit more reaction time, add in Improved Init an she'd be a bit better.


Plans for the future: Mix in a few levels of Eldritch Warrior and you got some solid HP, a better than average Wizard BAB setting and the ability to use a musket and/or touch spells quite nicely. Remember MOST wizards don't have PB/Precise Shot, much less a higher BAB, and touch spells are your friends.


Not sure if look for more personal buffing spells, a few 'wild card spells' like Summon Monster, or a mix of blast and utility. Some spells/options to look at in the future is Quicken Spell (Quicken True Strike for those 'He's 4 range increments away' shots with a musket or disintegrate.) Add in a few things like a metamagic rod or three to give the utility a bit more flex and you got a good generalist style wizard who can also sit back and wait for one of the rival wizards to wiggle fingers..and then shoot them.


One spell of note to remember later on would be Named Bullet and it's big brother the Greater version. You can have LOTS of fun with that and I figure she'd be just as vindictive as her older sister is. :D

What to do with a 5th level GM Blob?

Well it's been a while, I won't lie, since I put up something. I got like 15 or so drafts sitting in my folder that I haven't been able to work well enough to put up or I don't think are interesting enough. That and work is not as fun for inspiring as I'd hope. There are a few classes I'm still not too sure on that I'm trying to better master as a GM than as a player.*

So I was GMing one of the new supermodules,  Gallows of Madness, and ran all three parts. Nice module with a well laid out plot line that ties all three adventures together. You got a loose thread that lets you come at the stories from pretty much any angle. First, then third, then second adventure. You could find the big bad, then clean up the 'fallout' from the scenario.


What came out of it for me was a small 'GM Blob". Well Small would be 2nd level or 3rd; I'm sitting at 5th level character to build with five levels, twenty prestige and 8,874 gp to play with on my iPad's Hero Lab app. With my holiday season pretty much smushed by work (Long story and I shan't go into it.)

Well, on Christmas day I rolled down the last of characters I'd built out of the Blob and was surprised to find I had built 15 or so characters. :D Most of them with at least a crude backstory in my head and in notes.

So I figure I'll type up a few in coming posts. See if my 3 readers might comment and give me feedback on which to play. :D

*: I have some players who..shall be say are creative with the Investigator and well.. most of the Occult Adventure's Book.