He sounds like fun

Thanks, I think he will be.

I'm fine without too much of a back story. Let's say we met once or twice, but my only involvement was helping them out with some specialized cartridges and some other things that went boom with good affect. I never really joined them in the hunts. I'm back in New York, making ends meet by working for shooting clubs, and investigating strange murders or disappearances as they come up. Somehow we meet up again through a mutual contact.

Good morning, gentlemen. A pleasure to meet you.

I think Penny is beginning as a hunter, but I'm thinking of cross-classing to one of the magic-related advanced classes, like Occultist or Mage, later, so she could develop as a woman of letters. Her background suggests a possibility for that.

I think now I know you better, I can know where to focus Penny's build. In classic D&D terms, we have a Priest and two Fighters, so Penny will be the Rogue. :)

Penny is from England, so she isn't likely to have any prior association. She may have been in New York a short time, learning the lie of the land, so to speak.

When I revise my backstory, I'll post it.
This message was last edited by the player at 10:16, Thu 10 Oct 2013.

Jacob would be better linked to a Monk --

Well a monk using Brass Knuckles

Jacques build is more of a techie than a fighter as his age has started to impact his physical abilities.

Huh. Jacques is smarter than me. :( How did you get 18 Intelligence? The max would be 17, from a base of 16 and the 4th-level bonus.

I'm an old fart. The age modifiers add 1 to INT, WIS, and CHA and take 1 from STR, DEX, CON.

In reply to Jacques DeBay (msg # 27):


I will post my char sheet up tomorrow,  glad others took the thinking skills.  Looks like I will be the tank.

Ah. That explains it.

Well, I get to cut back on my tech skills, and won't be trying to get all steampunk, though I may try to buy some gadgets. I'll have Disable Device for lockpicking duties.

We could have some fun making gadgets if you can give me some ideas of what you'd be looking for. Some overlap or complimentary skills could lead to great collaboration.

There's my revised background and personality, and my description is now up. Rather long, but hopefully entertaining. :)

I'll dip Craft (electronic) for something different, but I've spread my skills too widely to string specialise in much. Some interesting things we could build might be magnifying glasses and lens, perhaps treated to reveal hellhounds and hidden, magical signs. An EMF meter would be useful for finding signs of spirits. Maybe crossbows or pistols/bullets modified for different substances. That would depend on what we learn, know, and can find or afford, I suppose.

Very nice Penny. Actually so nice I felt mine lacking. =-(

Posted my sheet. My guy would be considered as much a ranger as a cleric in classic D&D standards, since he gets tracking and favored enemy type abilities.

GM:

I am anxious to find out if my guy can actually perform an exorcism. =-)

I am actually going through the spell list from D&D and taking out specific spells that would apply to the setting. I am tweaking a few of them and I will add specific spell components as well so you know what you need to pack so to speak. When this is done, Men of Letters will have access to these spells. Certain spells are available depending on which level you are, etc. Exorcism will be one of them eventually. For hunters, there will be multiple bonuses of their own which I shall post soon. One of the options for hunters is to decide whether or not to take hunters spells such as learning how to make devil's traps, perform exorcisms, etc. They are more limited, but still handy.The more your levels increase the more things you get to learn. I'm hoping to keep fairly true to the series, so it's taking a bit of research mixed with what I think would be plausible.

Also, if you didn't see my post in the character creation, please take max hit die on your characters if you haven't already. And be sure to post your ages on the character sheets, once again if you haven't already.

I think exorcism should be a long ritual. Catholics teach that you need two participants, usually two priests, but a priest and a lay person of high faith can participate. It takes days and sometimes weeks depending on the strength of the spirit and relative faith of the priest(s).

Exorcist 3 has a super awesome scene where the priest just enters the building where the possessed man is held as an insane person and all the demons powers beyond his cell are simply turned off. The power of Faith on display. =-)

If hunters can access exorcism I may go that way. It will just depend on what makes most sense given his backstory.

Well, it depends on the situation. In Supernatural when they get good enough they can exorcise pretty quickly, but it depends on the strength of the demon and how much practice they have. In the first season it took them a bit longer. I think I'll have the rules reflect that for sure. Since you guys are just starting out it will not be an easy process.

One thing to keep in mind as far as hunter versus man of letters, is the men of letters will have a lot of spells I think that your character will find particularly useful, such as creating holy water, magical circle against evil, bless, atonement, etc. So it may be worth looking into before you make the final decision. You can also cross class if you like.

My homebrew additions will be a work in progress. If I find something is unbalanced or needs tweaking, I may be making changes down the road. I just thought it would be fun to play with.

Well I am looking forward to your updates Artemis.

Thanks! I'm almost done for now. Just a couple more spells for the time being and I should have this all posted very soon. It's actually really hard work, trying to tweak the spells to fit with the Supernatural setting. I made the exorcist spell pretty hard to start out with. In theory, it should not be easy to do at all. As you gain levels though, you'll find the difficulty goes down, so it should be in good keeping with the show. Sorry it's taking me so long guys. I'm ridiculously close to being ready though.

Also, I didn't see it off hand as I was browsing the D20 modern (I probably just missed it), but I am going to play by the rules of adding an ability point every four levels. So if you haven't already done this on your character sheet, feel free to add a point. I apologize for not having mentioned it sooner.

I see we have a Stefan Von Frankenstein --- That could be interesting.

Yes, he has quite an interesting background. I'll let him tell you about it though ;)

Good Evening all

It is a pleasure ta meet you all. I look forvard ta 'elping you in dhis.

You choose Vincent Price, the king of all thing horrible!

Did you know that early in his career he was a heart throb. No kidding, he was Leo DeCaprio of that time. Then he did The Wax Museum and the rest is history...

Frankenstein! And I thought I was pushing it for having Penny be an associate of Sherlock Holmes! Hello!

Now, is Stefan a relative or the monster?

I don't know about other d20 systems or third-party works, but D&D's Fiendish Codex I has some rules for possession and exorcism, Knowledge checks and saves, and various options for the possessing demon. The demon leaves its body behind and becomes an incorporeal presence, like the big smoke monster. The demon can be forced out with banishment, dismissal, dispel chaos, and dispel evil, plus the new exorcism spell in that book. That's a 1st-level Cleric spell, so it should be easily available to a divine-casting undead-turning advanced class in d20 Modern, like Acolyte or Spiritualist. It's all very close to what we see in Supernatural.

New series next week! :D

In reply to Father Simon Cole (msg # 41):

Yes Fadher I did kno dhat.

Dear Miss Penny, I am not my like my fadher, if dhat 'elps you.

Yeah, this Frankenstein monster is going to be closer to the book rather than the hollywood version. In this case he was basically a reanimated corpse thanks to a bit of science mingled with the occult. I'm going to make it to have been pretty dark actually. I will have more on that in the story.

Also, Stefan's character is only related to the original doctor so it's not like he was the actual Dr. Frankenstein. So that should help somewhat. Basically, it sounded like an intriguing idea and I do want you guys to have fun so I figured what the hey.

Yeah, this is kind of turning into League of Extraordinary Gentlemen mixed with Supernatural isn't it? As long as everyone is ok with this very minor mixture, I think it could add a nice element of fun. I do want it to be pretty minor though, so don't make it the focal point of the story please.

Oooooh, yeah.....important thing to note.....about Supernatural.....

I have this weird thing with my husband where we don't watch it all year and then when it comes on DVD we have a huge marathon and watch it within a week. So, basically I'll be going a year without watching the new season. SO NO SPOILERS!!!! I'm not allowed to look ahead on anything, so if you guys want to talk about the new season amongst yourselves you can just make a private message thread and call it Spoilers so I don't accidentally read it.

Yeah, I know it's pretty weird. We just don't really have access to it because our television reception sucks so bad and it's really frustrating to have it cut out all the time so it's easier to wait for things to come out. It's really really really hard not to figure out a way to watch them sooner, but it's been our tradition for about five years now, and for some reason it's kind of stuck. Go ahead, judge me. I can feel you doing it already ;P